A Beacon of Truth

I found this interesting group on Facebook just today. It had me wondering - is Facebook really following me all over the Internet by using their Beacon feature, tracking my personal purchases, and publishing a story in my News Feed that I just bought "x" or "y" on a website? Yee-ikes. That's not cool.

But the thing is, I just ordered my Christmas cards on Winkflash, and a story didn't appear in my News Feed. Likewise, I bought a custom template (backwards, I know, but trust me) through Dimpled Bottoms Designs, and no story in my News Feed. Are these guys just trying to get our goat?

Well... you guessed it... there are two sides of the story. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, I did a quick Google search, and found out that while it's true that this Beacon feature is an "opt-out" instead of an "opt-in," I wondered which websites were exactly affiliated with the feature.

Turns out there are 19 websites. NINETEEN. Out of the millions on the web, there are 19 websites that will offer you to publish a story in your News Feed. There are several ways to opt out of the story publish to your News Feed, but allegedly they are hard to see and use. Allegedly, because I haven't tried it. To save you the trouble, here are the websites that are currently affiliated with Facebook's Beacon feature.

Nineteen. Well, I can do better than harassing Facebook to change their Beacon feature. None of these companies are going to get my business until they decide to un-affiliate themselves from the Beacon feature. Passive-aggressive, perhaps, but I already belong to enough FB groups than to join one with a boring name and administered by no other than a spokesperson for MoveOn.org.

So, Facebook has discouraged me from giving my business, and eBay gets to keep my dormant account until notified otherwise. Two birds with one stone, and I actually did something about it instead of following everyone off the Beacon's cliff. Maybe not so passive-aggressive after all.