Project Beacon

In class today we discussed Facebook's new application of 'Project Beacon.' For those who were not in class or are curious to learn more about it, the application is basically another attempt for Facebook to stalk their customers in the attempts of advertising to them. Anytime you make an online purchase, such as a DVD or a book, the company sends your purchase information as part of the news feed on Facebook. So forget doing your Christmas shopping online, because now all of your friends will be updated on all of the gifts that you buy for them and for yourself. You can read more about the story here. I think that this is yet again another bad PR move for Facebook. Facebook seems to be completely ignoring their consumers. I thought that by now they would understand that we don't like being marketed or advertised to and that we expect our privacy to be respected. I only post and submit things on Facebook that I want my friends to know about. I think that submitting information that I would not typically want to submit to Facebook is in fact violating my rights and privacy.
Facebook needs to re-evaluate their PR on this and make sure that they work out all the kinks before they attempt to turn-off all of their consumers. They need to work on promoting this application in a way where it is not so obvious that people's privacy rights are being taken away. They need to mention the pros of this application. Facebook is not really doing a good PR job in managing the interests of their customers. Inserting another advertising application only seems to reflect how poorly Facebook is taking the interests and wishes of their customers into mind. In my opinion, Project Beacon is not something Facebook needs to add on. I don't see why Facebook needs to do this because they are already making plenty of profit off of their current ads and investors. I think it is a selfish move for the creators of Facebook to add an application that has the potential to threaten the security and privacy of their consumers.