Privacy Protests Get Facebook to Flinch

This has not been Facebook's finest week. On top of this story digging into the question of just how badly founder Mark Zuckerberg may have screwed over his onetime collaborators, the social networking giant is also getting hammered over Beacon, the newly-introduced tool that lets users know what their friends are spending money on.

BusinessWeek says Facebook is scrambling to announce a revision to Beacon in the face of mounting complaints, spearheaded by MoveOn.org, that it violates users' privacy. The focus of the complaints is the program's opaque and easily-overlooked requirement that users opt out if they don't want their information shared.

Providing Facebook extra incentive to move fast is a possible inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission into both Beacon and SocialAds, the program that encourages users to exchange information about their favorite brands. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy both say they'll ask the agency to investigate whether the programs compromise consumers' privacy.

There's more information, including some hints from a Facebook employee about how the company plans to respond, in our Daily Brief blog.