Tom Kincaid, a top platform developer and blogger mentioned in the Facebook Developer Forums last night that Beacon seems to be rearing its ugly head once again. (Update: And although Facebook’s Beacon platform was never actually removed from the service and the feature is not new, partners had backed off from it, which gave the perception to some that it was dead. Since then, Facebook has improved the service to make it more amenable to partners and users alike.)
According to Kincaid, he signed up for CBS Sportsline and got a Beacon-like pop-up, which he thinks may have used a Facebook cookie.
“I signed up on CBS Sportsline and joined fantasy football,” he wrote on the forum. “I got a pop-up on the bottom right. It looks like the old beacon stuff. I thought that didn’t work anymore, but it published a story to the homepage. I didn’t go through any kind of connect log in, it must have used the Facebook cookie somehow.”
I joined CBS Sportsline myself and added a Fantasy Football league to recreate Kincaid’s experience. Once I joined CBS Sportsline, I didn’t see the Beacon pop-up. But as soon as I created a team, the Beacon pop-up was displayed saying I created a fantasy football team, which gave me the option of “learning more,” saying it wasn’t me, or simply saying, “No Thanks.”
Much like Jesse Stay from the Staynalive blog, I found the same Beacon script (src=”http://www.facebook.com/beacon/beacon.js.php?source=10228841580″>) in the source code. I then clicked on the “Learn more” button and was brought to a Beacon information page.
After seeing the Beacon pop-up on CBS Sportsline, I went to other original Beacon partner sites to see if I could recreate the same experience on sites that Facebook may have been able to coax back into the fold, but I wasn’t able to. I signed up for TripAdvisor, but no Beacon pop-ups were displayed and I had another failing experience when I signed up for Zappos.
It now looks like Beacon gives you the option of posting Beacon updates in your timeline. If you click OK, it will be posted. But if you instead choose to remove it, you won’t find any mention of it in the timeline.
(Update: This is not new. Since late 2007, Beacon has been available on dozens of participating sites after the company made a series of improvements to ensure that users have control over what information is shared with their friends on Facebook.)
So facebook has cookies now on CBS? I just don’t get it…lol
Check your Local Stored Objects for Hulu. There are 2 objects with ‘Beacon’ in their name. Not sure if it is related to Facebook or not as I don’t use FB.
This has been happening to me for a while on Kongregate.com. I don’t think it’s new. I’m not sure what the mechanism is for Kongregate knowing I am a Facebook user, but I don’t really care that much either. I just click ignore.
This is awful.
It seems Facebook has now entirely given up on even acknowledging the views of its users. I’m wondering what its investors are thinking right now because I don’t think it’s going to take a lot to drive even the most loyal users away, given the way things are going.
The investors are probably thinking that they actually want to see a return on their investment. The reality is that, despite a $15 billion valuation, a half billion in investment, 100m “users”, and 500+ employees… Facebook is only estimated to pull in around $150m/year and isn’t even profitable at that.
It’s a company, built on hype. If losing half your users is what it’s going to take to monetize the other half… so be it. You can’t operate at a loss forever.
I dont know if it will help or not, but try turning off third party cookies. That is the best way I can think of to get rid of this crap.
this was already working anyways.
look at kongregate. http://kongregate.com
it keeps sending all the games i play to facebook on random. nothing new. it never went away from me.
They couldn’t change the name? Sure now it is optional but isn’t the trust already lost. It is like here in Canada where Maple Foods killed a bunch of people with listeria poisoning. Even if they make it through the lawsuits, who will trust them again. The word Beacon gives a negative emotional response. That response will be transferred to whatever company uses beacon. Why force feed an idea that should be dead?
Ya, Beacon is just like listeria poisoning killing a bunch of people.
W.T.F.
I know your a troll but I will bite. It is about trust. Online repeat business is based on trust. Maple Leaf foods lost people’s trust and it doesn’t matter what they do because a lot of people will never give them another shot.
The same idea applies to Beacon. It hurt user trust and thus a lot of people will have negative feelings about the service which could be transferred to the companies using the service. Look at the comments here. How many people here will be prone to click a beacon ad?
Maple leaf is the extreme example but from a business perspective the effect of losing consumer trust is the same. Once you do that it is hard to regain that trust because it becomes emotional.
It’s you’re, not your.
I understand the concept of online trust, but thanks for the explanation.
I think you speak only for the people who for whatever reason don’t understand the implication of “Post this to my facebook profile” that Beacon throws up. They get angry and lose trust because of their inability to understand the consequences of their actions.
Facebook is not doing anything nefarious here and allows the user full control over what gets published and what doesn’t.
If there is anyone that these people shouldn’t trust, it is themselves and their understanding of the interwebs.
hahahahaha your an idiot Gebadia
I get these on Blockbuster all the time.
This is not news. Its been active over at Kongregate since the first launch. Pops up and asks weather you want to send it over to facebook.
Happened to me on Fandango when I bought Dark Knight IMAX tix about a month ago.
Hmm… Glad I deleted my Facebook account after Beacon Fiasco 1.0. I haven’t missed it.
You show ‘em Dan. You shrunk their user base by 0.000001 %.
lol
CBS Sportsline, at least used to be 2 years ago, was one of the most aggressive email marketers I know. Nearly impossible to get off of their mailing list, and it took a large email campaign of my own to CBS executives to get me removed.
Just click “No Thanks” and STFU!
Whether you publish to your timeline or not, they’re still collecting and aggregating your browsing data, presumably for ad purposes. (At least that was the deal way back when. Anyone know if they changed that?)
A little about this at
http://kickstand.typepad.com/m.....ars-n.html
Why do you all think you really depend on Facebook?
Just stop using it.
Like me.
If your market is in Facebook, you sort of need to be there.
A few years back, this would have been called “adware”. Do we now need to install anti-facebook software?
“It appears that Facebook is trying to violate your privacy. Do you want to allow this? (Yes) (No)”
ah data-mining; sure click no thanks, i’m sure they still keep no track of your activities…
Same thing happened when a friend purchased tickets on Fandango… it posted which tickets she bought on her FB page
If true, simply another nail in the coffin for FB.
@cbeatz
It’s easy to say STFU when you are using the prison library computer. I just traced your IP address using beacon and saw your profile on FB. Was that you on your knees or your cell mate:) You probably want to keep moments such as those private, eh:)
Sincerely,
Warden from Pelican Bay
dude….WTF was that?
Let me guess, you’re voting for McCain…
I know yesterday when I signed up for http://www.epicurious.com/, I got a beacon message on my FB page.
If and only if they get my clear permission, I’m cool with this.
It’s actually never been deactivated. Beacon has always been an option in your preferences. New partners just didn’t add it.
I kept seeing it on Kongregate.com even after the backlash.
I was never under the impression that Beacon was discontinued, merely put on the backburner so that it could be tweaked. Which is probably what FaceBook has been doing.
It’s entirely possible that Beacon might one day be a worthwhile system, but they may have to change the name to get users to accept it. There’s a huge division of intelligence on FaceBook in regards to people complaining just because and the people who actually have a clear understanding as to why they are complaining.
They have already renamed it. It’s called Facebook Connect.
So someone explain the problem with this? Please do better than some “invasion of privacy” nonsense. This is the internet, you have no privacy. And they clearly give you an option to not send it to FB. I don’t know how having the option to tell your FB friends that you started a fantasy football league or played a game on Kongregate is enough to make you delete your account and get all huffy in blog comments.
The problem is that some people live in a bubble and think that their whining about a free website is important, that someone actually cares what they think.
Question: Do you (and Tom Kincaid) have the CBSSports.com app installed? It was used for the Facebook March Madness tournament. That would easily allow CBS Sportsline to post something to your facebook profile from their own cookie rather than Facebook’s. That being said, it does look like the beacon program rather than clever CBS Sportline cookie+app intergration programming. Facebook should take a page out of firewall rules, and make it default deny, rather than default allow.
Your mom is default allow.
haha, u gonna take that steve?
I look forward to Part II of this once people realize that Facebook Connect is just Beacon in disguise.
I feel like it should be noted that Tom Kincaid is not an employee of Facebook. He is a platform developer, not a facebook developer.
It’s these programs like Beacon and the social applications, surveys and “gifts” that you’re supposed to share with friends that end up passing personal information about you and giving you more ads and pop ups that make me really hate social networking sites like Facebook.
While I don’t mind having a personal profile up on these types of sites to chat with friends on occasion, they are more of an annoyance than a benefit to businesses who want to connect better with customers and other businesses.
I think the new trend is not to join an online community but to build your own. There’s already a lot of free build your own social networking community sites out there like Ning, KickApps, and CrowdLine. (Check out Mark Hendrickson’s article for the full list: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....l-network/ ) There’s also some inexpensive custom social network building services out there like the new Dotster Connect service that better accommodate the SMB market that wants to reach out to their customers. These seem to be good alternatives to dealing with the ads, pop-ups, programs and apps that you get bombarded with when visiting the big social networking sites like FaceBook and Myspace.
um, Kincaid? as in Thomas Kincaid? the master of light? or Jason Kincaid, the light side jedi?
I think it’s plenty obvious they are desperate for cash. I don’t think they’re gonna make it.