Facebook restores the new advertising tool

Facebook Inc has renovated a new advertising system that can flicker private complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other corporations.

The 55 million people who use Facebook will be given control whether they want to join in for the three week program that movement’s responsive information about online purchases and other activities.

After the reforms, users will have to give their open consent before any information is passed along. The privileges were made after about 50,000 users signed a petition online saying that the system called “Beacon” intruded, that put the Palo Alto based startup’s pursuit of profit ahead of its member’s privacy interests.

Almost 40 different sites including overstock.com, fandango.com has implanted Beacon in their web pages to track facebook users. Facebook felt that the marketing feeds would help the users to keep their friends informed about their interests while serving as referrals would help in bringing better sales to the sites that were using the Beacon system.

Facebook viewers have viewed the Beacon referrals as a betrayer. Critics have complained the advertising tool saying it is an unwelcome nuisance with flimsy privacy protections that has embarrassed some users.

The spokesman of Moveon.org said that if Facebook had followed the new opt-in standard it would be a crucial step in the correct direction. Moveon.org launched a petition drive recently to restore Beacon.

The reactions against Beacon have showed the balancing act that facebook must discuss as the company has tried to cash in on its popularity. Beacon is a key constituent in the social ads program launched by Facebook which is bringing in more revenue from visitors who use the social networking site as a place to chat, flirt and share interests and feelings with others.

Facebook is already believed to generate about $150 million revenue annually, after three years since its launch online, but it is under pressure to accelerate its growth.

Cynics have questioned over the market value of Facebook, given the company’s brief existence and its chief executive’s inexperience, Mark Zuckerberg, who was still a student of Harvard when he started facebook in 2004.

Zuckerberg’s stake in Facebook is worth about $3 billion, thought Beacon to be a friendly product that could help in generating more sales. This isn’t the first time Facebook has come up with problem like Beacon. Earlier Facebook had introduced a “News Feeds” tool that could track changes to user’s profiles. After lots of user reactions, Zuckerberg apologized for the inconvenience and turned off the news feeds feature.

Facebook’s paul Janzer apologized saying “We’re sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans,” “We are really helping to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends.” Janzer said.

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November 30, 2007 | Filed Under Internet, Tech News