MoveOn Should Really Move On

Written by Nicole Ferraro

Monday, November 26. 2007 at 09:00 AM EST 5 comments

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MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, has launched a petition against Facebook's social ads program, better known as "Facebook Beacon."

The petition is available on the MoveOn.org home page and through the MoveOn Facebook group officially called "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" The group launched yesterday and has 5,419 members and counting. Thus far, the group has become a haven for such scintillating message board chatter as:

Oh my gosh, my cousins entire christmas shopping list this week was displayed on the feed. thats so messed up.

This has gotta stop! I bet people would be much more pissed off about this if it started showing up on their mini-feed everytime they downloaded some porn, lol. ;-)

Well said, scholars.

MoveOn seems to be taking this issue pretty seriously. As I'm writing this, in fact, I've just received a press release from the site with the following ultra-dramatic WARNINGS emblazoned at the top:

As Holiday Shopping Begins, MoveOn Calls On Facebook To Stop Making People's Private Online Purchases Public

Christmas surprises & serious online privacy issues both at stake

"I saw my girlfriend bought an item I had been saying I wanted... so now part of my Christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining Christmas!" - Matthew from New York

** Interviews available with Facebook users concerned about privacy whose holiday gifts were revealed **

Allegedly, the main issue driving the MoveOn petition is the lack of an "opt-in" feature. All Facebook users are automatically opted-in to use the Beacon service, and if they don't want to endorse a product, they have to physically opt-out each time they purchase an item from a participating site. Considering that the lot of us are lazy and inattentive, this is sneakery at its best.

As I've mentioned in my previous posts, I am not at all an advocate for this sociable sales plan. It's exploitative, it's sneaky, and it's unfair (WAH!). However, I'm not climbing onto the MoveOn bandwagon just yet.

Call me crazy if you're feeling dare-devilish, but doesn't this Rah-Rah campaign reek of an ulterior motive? While I appreciate MoveOn's deep concern for us Facebook users who, seemingly, can't take care of ourselves, it seems rather convenient to have a big link advertising the petition riiiiggghttt alongside leftist and anti-war propaganda. Without getting too political, it just seems pretty obvious that MoveOn could not have picked a better time to draw a band of 50 million young voters to its site.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!