One Present Delivered

Just yesterday, I started making my Christmas shopping list, and it turns out that Christmas is coming early for Mark Zuckerberg and co. This morning, the founder of everyone's favourite social network, posted on the Facebook blog, that the controversial application, Beacon is no longer being forced upon everyone!

For those of you unfamiliar with Beacon, it was a new application recently launched by Facebook. Where third party web-sites that sign up (and presumably give Facebook exorbitant amounts of money) and any actions taken by Facebook users at these sites was posted to their profile. Facebook's business site, mentions "...purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more...". So, for anyone wanting to go and do some on-line shopping, it would then get posted to their feed and all of their friends would know.

While this is clearly a fantastic advertising tool, it, of course, raises a ton of privacy issues. In the most assinine of levels, if I decide that I want to add a Nintendo Wii to an on-line wish list (which gets posted through my feed), and then I notice that my mother buys a Nintendo Wii (posted through her feed) then guess what? CHRISTMAS IS OFFICIALLY RUINED!!!!

Of course, there are much deeper privacy issues at stake here, especially with the McCarthy-era-xenophobia that seems to be going on south of the border. If Facebook (or anyone else) finds that I have just bought a few books on horticulture, and then looked at some pictures of Amsterdam, all of a sudden I am clearly housing a grow-op according to the good people of the internet. It really just gives an opportunity for those in power (i.e. governments and corporations) to keep better tabs on people not in power (i.e. me), and I'll be damned if I want that to happen! The UK's Information Commisioner was quoted as saying that we are "sleep-walking into a surveillance society", and this is a great example of our collective narcolepsy on the issue of our own privacy.

When I first joined Facebook (apparnetly a year ago tomorrow judging by that link...) I was worried that it would be too "Big Brother" but was convinced that it wasn't by people who actually used it. It seems that maybe I was right all along after all...

In a less apocalyptic vein, I think that Beacon, and things like, are a great example of the radical paradigm shift that has been taking place on-line recently. The initial appeal of the internet in it's early days (i.e. 1996) was the complete and utter anonymity. If you wanted to tell someone that you were a 23 year old blonde with a smoking body, there was no problem. People loved that about the internet, a chance to leave the crappy real world behind and make your own. However, this seems to be a thing of the past.

While you can still post a model's profile picture, or be that Night Elf Mohawk, you still give out your birthday, your address, your credit card, and so many more personal facts about yourself, that your on-line self is getting closer and closer to your real self. When you add in the fact that sites are tracking down your shopping habits for their own "word of mouth" style advertising, it becomes harder and harder to do what the internet was meant to do, escape.

For example, a solid 10 months ago, I removed all references of my last name here at this blog. I just wanted it to be a little separate from my real life, yet if you do a Google search for my full name, this site is 2nd on the list. I legitimately have no idea as to just how Google tracks down words on this site that are no longer there, unless it links it to my e-mail, which includes my last name, or my personal information, I don't understand how I can still be found so easily. Kind of scares me...

The truly scary, and sad part of all of this, is that we have no way of going back to the Golden Age of Anonymity where we really could be a super stud or half-elf paladin, instead here we are very clearly being ourselves once more. I guess we can all mark down November 6, 2007 (the date of the official launch of Beacon) as "The Day the Internet Died".

Ah well, it had a good run...

Until next time,

G

P.S. For all Facebook users, be sure to go to your "Privacy" tab in the top left of your pane and then to the link marked "External Websites" and tick off the box that says "Don't allow any websites to send stories to my profile", trust me, it'll be worth it someday...

P.P.S. It turns out the Sens won tonight as well...that's TWO presents delivered, now I just need to start working on that anti-zombie-spray...