Facebook to backtrack on Beacon?

I've posted earlier about the new social advertising feature on Facebook called Beacon and how it was ruffling a few feathers. Turns out that it is more than just a few. According to an article in Business Week, 45,000 people have signed a petition started by MoveOn.org asking Facebook to turn face on this initiative. Bloggers at MediaShift have offered up a Web Privacy Manifesto for your consideration. Personal privacy is a sensitive issue and as Shelly Palmer points out on his blog, there is potential for Beacon to cause trouble for Facebook users.

For example, if you purchase a movie ticket on Fandango.com, your news feed (and the feeds of all your friends) will report the time of your purchase, the name of the movie ticket purchased (with a link to it) and the site where it was purchased (with a link). Sounds great! Doesn’t it? This is just the kind of information Jeff R., a freshman at NYU, wanted his girlfriend to see. She showed up at the theater expecting that the two tickets he purchased online were for the two of them. Sadly, Jeff was taking his other girlfriend, Kim W. to see American Gangster. You can imagine how unfortunately this particular evening turned out.

This anecdote, if true, is an example of what can go horribly wrong when we surrender our privacy to software algorithms designed to maximize connectivity and interactivity. Sometimes less is more.