You may not be aware, but Facebook recently unrolled a new “features” designed to share one’s Facebook habits with other, non-facebook, web sites, ostensibly to give users a “more personalized” web experience. At the moment, only three websites (Pandora, Microsoft’s Docs, and Yelp) are receiving your Facebook data, but I think it’s safe to assume that these three are only the BETA group, and more are to come.
Facebook is taking your “likes” and pages that you are a fan of, and offering that information (for a fee) to these sites, so that they may tailor what they offer to your preferences. For example, if you “Become a fan of…” a certain artist on facebook, next time you log into Pandora, it’s likely a new channel will appear for that Artist you recently “Became a fan of”. Kinda cool, I guess, if you like your personal information being sold–WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE. The implications are immense, and quite frankly, scary.
It’s one thing to personalize my music listening, but it’s not hard to imagine scenarios far more alienating and sinister. Say you “Become a fan of” a certain politician. Now, your political views may be sold to outsiders and websites. Every site you log on to that purchases the data, will know you, and know your views. Pre-judgement at its finest. I’ve seen a fan page for “Blacking Out,” sure, it’s funny in college, but you wouldn’t tell the entire web about it–the entire world–would you? Just think for yourself, what have you “Become a fan of,” or “Liked”. Do you want the entire web to know all that? Rest assured, these three BETA sites are only the beginning.
All this would be pretty darn neat if Facebook only told their users about it. But they didn’t, they rolled it out without your knowledge. Think I’m kidding? Log on to docs.com and check out the banner that appears at the top of the screen. Facebook stated, that it “gave users unprecedented control over their data and that it only shared what they have agreed to make public.” The problem is, no one agreed to make this information public. Facebook took it upon themselves to do it for us.
What further irks me is the long, tedious, confusing process you have to go through to disable these so called features. It’s so laborious that I cannot help but think that it is intentional, as to discourage users from opting out. What follows is a step-by-step guide to opting out.
On ACCOUNT drop down menu > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization Pilot Program, Click Edit Settings
You Should see a check box (already checked for you albeit) like this:
Uncheck this. At this time, you will be met with another box, a warning, as if what you are doing is inadvisable. Proceed.
Before you click confirm. Open in a new tab, the LEARN MORE link. If you read the text, it turns out that your information can still be exported to the entire web through the action of your Facebook freinds. Not cool. We will take care of this, too. After opening the LEARN MORE link, confirm.
This link will take you to a help center. This is a handy link because this help center is buried within the user interface, making it hard to come across on your own. There is a list of 20 help topics. The 18th of 20, should be this:
Click here. You should be met with:
Open each individually (new tabs makes it easier, as clicking on one will open the link in the same tab and hide this list from you each time, tricky, eh?) and click BLOCK APPLICATION on each page.
Congratulations, you’ve just protected yourself from having your information exploited and sold! I am worried, however, where will this stop? Will I be notified when new sites are added to this program? Will I have to opt out of them individually as well?
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