Block Facebook Beacon
You might be aware of Beacon, Facebook's new advertising platform that allows Facebook's partners to place a cookie on your machine when you shop with them, and next time you log on to Facebook you are notified that the retailer is sending a story to your profile that says 'X bought (played, watched, etc.) Y at Z'.
I am not against the idea per se, in fact I'm quite excited about the possibilities. If I bought tickets to the Tangled Up Arena Tour I'd love it to be entered automatically into my events, for all my friends and colleagues to see. OK, bad example here perhaps ;-)
You will not hear my cry out at an invasion of privacy. It is your choice to share some personal details on Facebook. Your choice to add your colleagues as friends. You must be prepared to face the consequence of your actions. Don't come to me crying when your boss totally susses out your lame excuse to skip work.
The problem is that Facebook can't control the way partners use Beacon, and retailers don't always warn you when you shop with them that they are going to place the cookie and send the story to Facebook. You do have the option to refuse the story afterwards, when you log on to Facebook with the same browser, but what if someone else has used your computer, say to buy you a surprise present? Or, heavens forbid, a surprise present for someone else you are not even meant to know about?
If you use Firefox you can just use the BlockSite plugin and enter http://*facebook.com/beacon/* in the input box. Other browsers might not make it so straight-forward but you can still do it.
Of course, you can avoid being on Facebook. Or stop shopping online altogether. And then you'd be the modern equivalent of my dad who stubbornly refused to let anyone in the family watch the second TV channel that launched in the sixties because one channel is just enough, why would anyone want to be able to choose?
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