Facebook Beacon Keeps Track Of Logged Off Users

The Facebook Beacon controversy has lit the blogosphere on fire, causing Facebook to retreat and not displaying Beacon ads unless a user specifically approves it (under threat of an FTC complaint.)

All is well, right? Facebook users got the default no display of ads, requiring a explicit OK from the user to display, so all is happy again in Facebook land, right?

Not so much. It seems Beacon, even when you don't give it permission, still keeps track of all your purchases, but even worse does it even if you're logged off from Facebook:

Facebook's controversial Beacon ad system tracks users' off-Facebook activities even if those users are logged off from the social-networking site and have previously declined having their activities on specific external sites broadcast to their Facebook friends, a company spokesman said via e-mail over the weekend.

Although according to the spokesman Facebook does nothing with the data transmitted back to its servers in these cases and deletes it, the admission will probably fan the flames of the controversy engulfing Beacon, which has been criticized by privacy advocates.

"Fan the flames" is right. This whole situation is ridiculous, and Facebook should correct this at once. What Facebook doesn't understand is that ultimately this will be horrible to their business, killing their user base if it isn't addressed quickly.

The social network market is extremely fickle, and if users become dissatisfied with a service they're going to move on. Anyone remember Friendster? Exactly. The canaries in the coal mine for social networks are the geeks. We're the ones that are quickest to move on and find the next best thing, and a huge privacy issue like this is certainly upsetting lots of people in the web geek community.

I myself haven't logged into Facebook and cleared all my cookies just in case during this whole fiasco. If we move on, then other users will follow, and if there's an exodus of users, there goes Facebook's value.

Social networks live and die by the happiness of their users. Facebook needs to remember that, and place it as the highest value before trying to monetise their users. Otherwise, Facebook will loose everything and become just another Friendster.

Facebook Admits Ad Service Tracks Logged-Off Users [Yahoo News]