The only way to get user consent is to have the PARTNERS request information (e.g. email address used on FB, account username/password on FB, etc) of users. This is also defacto opt-in on the Partner side.

Apps request permission to access the profiles. The same should be the case of Beacon partners.

There really is no gray area here. It’s very clearly defined what is acceptable and what is not and the precedent that is acceptable for this kind of program.

The only way to get user consent is to have the PARTNERS request information (e.g. email address used on FB, account username/password on FB, etc) of users. This is also defacto opt-in on the Partner side.

Apps request permission to access the profiles. The same should be the case of Beacon partners.

There really is no gray area here. It’s very clearly defined what is acceptable and what is not and the precedent that is acceptable for this kind of program.

Scoble also makes an outstanding point: Facebook has not responded, apologized or explained themselves, which seems to tell the userbase that FB just doesn’t care what they think.

Scoble also makes an outstanding point: Facebook has not responded, apologized or explained themselves, which seems to tell the userbase that FB just doesn’t care what they think.

The social network is experiencing a mini meltdown and has many fans, users, and advertisers pulling an ?about face.?…

The social network is experiencing a mini meltdown and has many fans, users, and advertisers pulling an ?about face.?…

Beacon will not die. It will serve at the core business of Facebook’s business model for years to come.

I’d go beyond what Bob just wrote in that what blew people away was their user experience. Most people understand that much of what they do online - what sites they visit and what they buy - are being monitored in some way for later marketing purposes. But what people were taken aback and then livid about was that Facebook was now part of customer-retailer relationship without their approval, that their private purchases were then being made public, and that the burden was on them to stop all of this on a case-by-case basis.

If Facebook had meant Beacon to be an experiment, it would have used carefully coordinated focus groups. They decided to go full force on it anyway. That’s because they see it as their future. And they got too cocky.

Ironically, they should have used focus groups anyway. A controlled setting in which they can observe user interaction. Perhaps out of arrogance and believing in their own hype, they forged ahead anyway, offending their users and irritating their partners.

From now on, advocacy groups and business partners will play a greater role in Facebook’s future decision making process. It didn’t have to that way.