Boycott Facebook & Related Sites

Let me stipulate a few facts:

• I live my life online.
• I have gotten very used to a certain (large) lack of privacy in most traditional senses.
• I am in favor of business relationships with independent media creators.

But the way that Facebook's Beacon is setting cookies and sending my very specific online behavior (at selected sites) back to it's databases not in the aggregate but assigned to my personal data, is going too far.

Beacon is getting a lot of bad press, but this article in PC World hits bottom for me.

I am going to boycott Facebook for now. Please join me. Let their traffic plummet and see how fast the users can speak.

If you think you need to use Facebook for some reason, you can use Firefox and manually block at least some of this bad behavior.

From gigaom here are some of the particiapting sites that I also plan to boycott:
The 44 sites that have partnered with Facebook include everyone from Kongregate, LiveJournal, NYTimes (NYT), Sony Online, Blockbuster (BBI), Bluefly.com, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, TypePad, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com and Zappos.com. I've also heard Fandango and Epicurious.

I am happy to announce our client, Here Comes The Guide does not particpate, so all you brides? Stay away from The Knot and Wedding Channel! And head over to the nice, ad-free Here Comes the Guide site and plan your wedding in peace and privacy. FYI, they have a great business model and are an excellent example of a company that provides a great service and expertly balances the desires of brides with the sustainability of bridal vendors.

UPDATE: When I said "related sites" in the title, I was referring to the 40+ sites who are in on the Beacon tracking system with Facebook, and was not lumping all social networking sites into the pot. Innocent until proven guilty applies here.

UPDATE 2: Chris Heuer provides an excellent and scholarly commentary on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's most recent apology.

I am glad there is forward movement on the Beacon situation, but this closing remark indicates there is more work to do:

Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we're releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.

"even when partners send them to Facebook"?? Let's keep at it folks. Don't track data to individuals. Consider us a herd if you must, but let us retain the semblance of privacy that can exist in the aggregate while you attempt to figure out how to reach us. (Even though countless among us are posting on this topic daily.)

Why the new Facebook “Endorse” Model Works for Me

Today Facebook announced that it will allow companies to create profiles inside the social networking web site. Individual users can then endorse or be "fan" of said company. Just like Facebook, independent media producers can serve as a very valuable filter for their audiences when it comes to products and services. In more crass terms, stop being ashamed of having corporate sponsorship, and duh, don't take on any sponsors whom you do not trust or support yourself. Business ethics 101. People like Chris Brogan are happy to call you out when you use the tools effectively.

What we are really enabling now is a whole new self-sustaining system whereby people who make stuff (P-producers/plafroms) attract people who like that stuff (A-audience) and can be supported by companies who want to tell us about their stuff (S-sponsors/advertisers). I presented this Player's Triangle concept at the Podcast & New Media Expo this past September and I think it is an incredibly efficient way of connecting people and building businesses.

The independent producer - be it Facebook or Meredith Medland of Living Green Podcast - gets the party started. The platform/show both have natural filtering mechanisms built in. They are built of networks of people who have organized themselves based on shared interests not irrelevant data like geography or age.

Audiences are very tired of being sold to every waking moment, and I have written before how advertising is broken. Nonetheless, they still want to connect, to be entertained, to be informed. The platforms and the independent producers are doing that, while traditional media struggles to find a place in this new world. The internet has also trained people to want things for free. I think this is partly because that was how early internet companies competed against each other and because it is relatively cheap to built an internet business. Not so easy to sustain one though.

And that is where commercial sponsors come into play. They have the budget and the desire to reach new customers. They have been trained to think a 2M audience is better than a 20K one, but that was before targeted audiences. The Long Tail as Chris Anderson elucidated, is about this revolution where meaningful and profitable transactions are taking place directly, without the radio or TV station required.

How long will it take until we never have to get an un-targeted or mass-mailed advertisement again? Well, a few generations probably, but this is a start. Who wants to be the first company to stop using mass marketing tactics and instead commit to only targeted message delivery?

I think of it as an organic circle of commerce. We find each other by shared interests and not by accident in the thousands of messages blast at us daily. I can hear the quiet coming already. And I love how this supports people like us who are creating a first-class internet tv programs that our viewers want to be free.