I think G-rated sharing on media consumption stuff (songs I listened to, movies I watched) is the right kind of data I might share (I do that today), Going beyond the media category is not something that I see people doing broadly. If my buying habits define me to my friends, I need new friends! I certainly will tell folk about new products I have a passion about, but that’s an infrequent event, imho.

Your killer question is what Facebook will do with Beacon-obtained data, even if you opt out of surfacing it in your feed. I will look into it, but if you get an answer first, I’d love to know!

As one of the people responsible for helping to clean up the mess from last year’s AOL Search data release, I’m very sympathetic to privacy issues.

But there is some great consumer value that can come out of sharing data on social networks. People have been doing this on Facebook and Myspace, even before Beacon, using apps like Virtual Bookshelf and Flixster.

I wrote a blog post (pre-announcement) on marketing on social networks:
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/11/05/marketing-on-social-networks/

If my friends know that I have an iPod Touch or a Magellan GPS or that I like Keen shoes, they’ve got a reference point when they’re making purchase decisions.

The big question I haven’t seen addressed is what Facebook does with the Becaon data if I don’t choose to publish it. There are brands that I would happily associate myself with and others that provide utility (Tide) or are embarrassing (Preparation H). If I buy Preparation H and tell Facebook I don’t want to publish it, do they still keep track of the fact that I’ve bought it?

With Facebook Beacon, I see the third-party sites being more concerned than users. If I’m Amazon or Netflix, one of my competitive advantages is the database of purchasing habits that I have. Do I really want to give that away?

BTW, one Facebook privacy issue you didn’t mention was the reports of Facebook employees casually snooping on user information.

First, glad to know you are still on the case for AOL – they need you! Thanks for the post, and the reminder about the initial p3p efforts from a few years ago. My views are simple – think about the energy put into the site-by-site p3p spec – now look at today: I would be hard-pressed to believe privacybird, which was a nice idea we discussed incorporating into AOL 9.0, ever got to more that 1mm users at its peak – hence my view that add-ons won’t get us there.

I would also propose that a Tacoda-enabled AOL is a way different world than before, and that was the reason for the need for the recent press push.

Here is a good link to a list of 50 Firefox add-ons in the security and privacy space: http://mashable.com/2007/07/25/firefox-security/

IMHO, no player is even close to the mark, in terms of a policy based solution here. The first steps on host-based white/black listing is at least starting to show up in IE7, Symantec’s toolbar, and other add-ons, but this is all phishing focused. Think there is an opportunity here, but it involved organic development, not acquisition.

Would agree we as consumers have much less privacy than we are aware of. I just think that the road back to fuller control starts with a single step. I also think that someone’s ability to track my web browsing habits without my full awareness (my view of the average consumer), and also tracking and potentially sharing my online purchasing habits with people I know is beyond acceptable as an opt-out default. Even database marketers have restrictions on sharing transactional data. Do I feel online privacy efforts persecute online businesses unfairly? No way! There is a middle ground here that can increase CPC/CPA performance and still respect the consumer.

If you go to Safeway and buy a weeks worth of groceries, you’ll get coupons on the back of your receipt targeted to your purchases. (Including the hemorrhoid cream you reference in your title – or worse!. If you used your Safeway card to get discounts, they’ll be targeted to things you bought previously. That is way more specific than any online cookie based system!

Or take what Acxiom has – a very rich database of over 130m households in the US, including info like household income, number of kids, recent catalogue purchases, magazine subscriptions etc. They sell this to any direct marketer who wants to buy it. That is far more specific than what Myspace makes available as well.

I don’t understand why people are more concerned about online ad targeting than offline