Block The Evil Beacon!!! – December 6, 2007

I know everyone loves to have their own special online identity. Some people like to make everything about their life public, and others choose to select what they make public. I think carefully about what I post online, as I know potential employers, friends, and family are going to eventually look at it. There also happens to be super psycho stalkers and creepy old men trolling the Internet in search of prey. I walk the fine line of political correctness, and that’s cool with me.

Facebook, however, is really pushing its user base to make everything about their lives as public as possible. CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to create this social grid to connect people online just as well as they are connected in real life. Oh yeah, he also has this tiny little idea of giving advertisers the tools they need to bug the hell out of you online.

So here’s the deal. Facebook recently launched Beacon, which is a way for companies and marketers to infiltrate your Facebook world. Think the "Eye of Sauron" from Lord of the Rings. Essentially, all companies and marketers have to do is install a couple lines of code into their website, and if you go to their site and do anything transactional, it will be posted into your Facebook account unless you opt out of it. In Facebook’s own words, here is what Beacon will do for businesses:

“Facebook Beacon enables your brand or business to gain access to viral distribution within Facebook. Stories of a user's engagement with your site may be displayed in his or her profile and in News Feed. These stories will act as a word-of-mouth promotion for your business and may be seen by friends who are also likely to be interested in your product. You can increase the number of friends who see these stories with Facebook Social Ads.”

Uhmmmmm….if they are going to use me as a piece of media, where the hell is my cut of the pie?

I highly suggest you opt out, or perhaps you want your friends to know about those adult diapers you bought on Amazon.

Here’s how:

Log into Facebook. Next, click on the privacy settings tab.

Then click on “External Websites” setting within the privacy tab.

THEN CLICK SAVE. All done! Enjoy!

Here's a great video of what life will be like with Beacon censored, created by XgenghisX on YouTube.