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April 2010 - Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
A blog for truly small businesses

Monthly Archives: April 2010

Remember the hell of uninstalling AOL? Well, Facebook is trying to get you in the same boat

If you haven’t heard, Facebook has announced a new application that website owners can install on their websites that will “personalize” their site visitors experience by using the information you’ve made public on your facebook profile. This means all of the posts that your friends post and your photo gallery and everything else you share. Facebook’s is not offering this as a “free” tool out of the goodness of their hearts – the goal is to “own” your information and share it with people that are willing to pay for it – think about this – you will turn on the TV and go to your favorite show and see ads that say “Hi Harmony, we have selected to advertise these items to you because other 51 year old women have purchased them”. Oh, by the way, since you’re a woman and 51 you probably will see ads for things like Menopause vitamins, bladder control, anit-aging cream etc etc etc – is this the world you really want to live in? The worst part of this is that Facebook has made your info available by default – they didn’t ask you if you wanted to share this information – instead, you have to realize that they are giving it away freely and go into your facebook settings and “uncheck” the box that says “Yeah, tell the world about me”.

This guy has done a very nice matrix to help us understand the latest announcements by Facebook: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/21/facebooks-crusade-of-colonization/

I don’t know about you but this is over the edge for me I strongly recommend you read this and take action immediately:

FACEBOOK is at it again…violating your personal information: As of today, there is a new privacy setting called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck “Allow”. Please copy & repost.

Truth be told, if I weren’t in the business of assisting people to be found on the web I would cancel my account on Facebook altogether and use the newly available “social suicide” tool to remove all of my data permanently. Unfortunately, I live in a world of followers, which means that I have to help my clients navigate the waters and if their customers are using facebook they have to participate in facebook – for now. Ultimately I hope that Google will quit supporting Facebook by no longer sending their bots out to search their posts -this would immediately eliminate the “power” facebook has gained – in fact, if Google does not take this action they will help Facebook kill Google. Google is not perfect but they have built a successful business by trying to be ethical and allow us to maintain our privacy while providing tools to find the information WE CHOOSE. Sure, they sell ads and make a ton of money doing it but you ONLY see those ads when you are looking for something that they relate to. I don’t like the idea that I might come to your website looking for a saddle blanket and have an ad for Adult Diapers thrown in my face!

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