If you use Facebook, you need to read this.

I am careful only to publish online, in blogs and my Facebook etc, only things that I am comfortable being made public. Facebook, apparently has other ideas. They have recently (3 weeks ago) started using a thing called a Beacon, which works in collaboration with various partner sites, and sends a notification to my Facebook profile to announce to my friends what I just bought. Or what online games I’ve been playing.

You know, like “Sarah just bought a book called How To Write Porn In Ten Easy Steps from amazon.com”, or something like that.

The partner sites are supposed to ask me if I want to do that. Apparently, sometimes, they don’t, and the message gets sent anyway. Yes its possible to opt out, but opting out doesn’t mean the data doesn’t get sent, only that it’s not published. Facebook still would know what I bought. Do I trust them with all that personal data about me? Frankly, No. Fortunately there is a way, at least there is for Firefox users, to block the beacon.