Shame on Facebook

I am very disappointed with Facebook. Not only have they violated the privacy of their users, but instead of fully owning up to their bad decisions, they continue to state that they were only trying to create more ways to keep tabs on your friends.

The ads and beacons that were put in place on Facebook allowed people to see what you were purchasing online and they would display advertisements that pertained to your personal profile and previous purchases. Not only is this an invasion of privacy, but its a terrible idea. For example, if you bought a present for your friend whose birthday was coming up, she would most likely find out on her Facebook feed. There were many cases where this happened, and users were not happy about it. In addition, for a long time it was not an option to turn off the beacon. Therefore, your personal buying information was streamed across the Internet with or without your permission.

I personally had no idea about the beacon, but I did catch onto the advertising. I recently created a profile for my puppy on Dogbook (lame, I know) and shortly after, I started seeing Petsmart advertisements, dog training tips, and so forth displayed to the side of my page. At first, I didn't think much of it, but after I was repeatedly getting dog advertisements I started to catch on. Its creepy to know that they are using your information on you profile to personally advertise to you, but I have to say it's a smart idea. Beacons... not so much!

If you are not familiar with this Facebook issue, I ran into this site, Facebook's' "Privacy Trainwreck." It gives you a summary on what happened, how Facebook responded, and the all the drama involved with the issue.