Thursday, December 6, 2007
Facebook apologizes for ad platform 'mistakes'
by Glenn Chapman Wed Dec 5, 6:10 PM ETSAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday apologized online to members for "mistakes" made implementing a new ad platform and gave them a way to switch it off.
Last week the hot social networking website changed its nascent "Beacon" advertising platform to an opt-in system to soothe members outraged by what they saw as an assault on their privacy.
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg gave members a way to turn Beacon off.
"We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it," Zuckerberg wrote in a posting at the Facebook website.
Beacon lets "partners" track Facebook members' visits to their websites and relay messages letting users' friends in the social networking community know what they bought in a tactic referred to as "trusted referral" advertising.
Originally members were fodder for the ad platform if they didn't exert the effort to "opt-out."
Internet civic and political action group Moveon.org said that 55,000 of Facebook's 50 million members electronically signed a petition titled "Facebook: Stop invading my privacy."
The petition calls for Facebook not to spread word of what members buy to their friends without explicit permission.
The uprising caused Facebook to change the system so that members are asked to click on an "OK" icon if they want stories about their activities at advertisers' websites to be sent to friends via automated news feeds.
If members do nothing with the notices, no stories are sent, according to Facebook, which acts as intermediary between advertisers and members. A privacy tool released Wednesday lets members permanently opt-out of Beacon.
Facebook launched Beacon in early November in a move awaited by analysts wondering how Facebook will cash in on its booming popularity.
"It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share," Zuckerberg wrote.
"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them. I'm not proud of the way we handled this situation and I know we can do better."
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 while he was a Harvard University student.
Facebook partners in the ad program include Overstock.com, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Sony Pictures Television, and Blockbuster.
Zuckerberg, 23, billed Facebook Ads as a way to target ads at members in a "referral" manner mirroring the social nature of the website.
"Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate with each other and organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy," said Moveon.org civic action spokesman Adam Green.
"Facebook's policy change is a big step in the right direction, and we hope it begins an industry-wide trend that puts the basic rights of Internet users ahead of the wish lists of corporate advertisers."
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