Responding to a wave of user complaints, Facebook has made changes to its controversial Beacon advertising program which allow users to exercise a modicum of power over their data. There's still no global opt-out option, but the new features offer several points of control over what information is included in your mini-feed.
The Beacon program, which tracks your purchases, reviews and other data on external sites, offers three ways to keep that information out of your Facebook profile. The first and simplest method is to visit the main Facebook privacy page for your account and disallow any Beacon applications. These setting must be made on a application level basis, there's no way to turn it off globally.
Still, if you're really concerned about your privacy, that's the simplest way to stop Beacon (of course, if you're really concerned about privacy you probably don't have a Facebook account in the first place).
The other two methods are item-based. When a Beacon affiliate is going to send info to your mini-feed, a notification will appear in the lower right corner offering a “No Thanks” option, which stops the transaction from being published.
If you approve a notification or ignore the initial warning you can still change your mind. The next time you visit your Facebook home page. you'll see a new box reminding you that the Beacon item is in your queue and, as with the first method, there's an option to remove it.
While the new options are precisely the sort of bone you'd expect Facebook to throw out, the lack of a global setting to turn off Beacon notifications show that Facebook still doesn't want you to have total control of your data.
[via All Facebook]
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