Not everyone may agree, but this article featured in PCWorld has some similar, and equally sarcastic, review of the almighty Facebook:
“#3. The Anti-Social Network: Facebook Beacon
“We have to give props to Facebook for stealing the social networking spotlight from MySpace this year. But once it got up on stage, Facebook laid an egg. For example, opening up the Facebook platform to third-party developers was inspired. Now, six months later, those viral-to-the-point-of-influenza Facebook apps are mostly just irritating. (For the 27th time: No, I do not want to spam everyone in my network with another movie quiz, thank you. Now go away.)
“The introduction of Facebook’s Beacon advertising program was more than disappointing–it was disturbing. Suddenly, anything you purchased on Amazon, Overstock, Fandango or three dozen other sites would be broadcast to your Facebook friends. Worse, even when you were logged out, Facebook still gathered the information, though the company says it didn’t use the data.
“CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized and offered subscribers easier ways to opt out of Beacon, but the damage was already done, says Richard Laermer, principal at RLM PR in New York and author of Punk Marketing.
“‘The idea behind Beacon is fascinating, but the fact that it was being done for subscribers by someone else was less than cool,’ he says. ‘It’s like me fishing in your trash can for your store receipts (you haven’t spotted me yet?) and then telling other people what you’ve bought. Not illegal, but oh so creepy.’
“How much damage has Beacon done to Facebook’s rep? ‘Their PR value just went down about 40 percent,’ he adds.”
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