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From it’s very beginning’s Facebook was touted to be an online haven. Unlike it’s other social counterparts, like MySpace, it had a certain air of saftey. They people we connected with were called, “Friends”. We could control who saw our profile and who was “Friended”.

Unfortunately for us, Facebook pushes the envelope of privacy over a cliff. They use that comfort of saftey against us. In a sense we are giving our information to the very enemy we hope to be protected from.

In November of 2007, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, stood before a packed crowd of advertsing executives to unveil a new concept in the ad space. He allowed companies to use the Facebook social graph and to develop highly targeted ads.

Large brands such as Coca-Cola (KO), Sony Pictures (SNE) and Verizon (VZ) have signed on for this effort. Part of the engine powering this new ad system is called Beacon, which takes data from 44 web destinations and mashes it up with Facebook’s internal information to help build more focused advertising messages.

While it seemed to be a briliant concept, a quick review reveals that Beacon might turn out to be a privacy nightmare for the company.

The 44 sites that have partnered with Facebook include everyone from Kongregate, LiveJournal, NYTimes (NYT), Sony Online, Blockbuster (BBI), Bluefly.com, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, TypePad, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com and Zappos.com.

These partner sites put a little a piece of Facebook javascript on their web site and certain information, cleverly (and innocuously) labeled as a user alert, is sent to Facebook. For instance, Fandago users can publish information about the movies they saw. It all seems like a clever idea because it lets Facebook triangulate your likes and dislikes even more, and deliver more focused ads.

Not everyone was pleased with the announcement. MoveOn.org started a massive campaign against the Beacon service.  The website states – “When you buy a book or movie online–or make a political contribution–do you want that information automatically shared with the world on Facebook?”

Less than one month later, Mark Zuckerburg, wrote a post on Facebook’s blog stating, “We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.” 

As we will see, Facebook does a great job with saying the right things, but they simply do not follow through. In fact Beacon is still a viable product. Check out the FAQ on the Beacon Product.

In the next installment we will provide more information about Facebook’s hidden agenda to exploit it’s users.

This is Part 1 of a series I am doing on Social Media Sites and Privacy.

Here we go. Facebook is a social hang out for the lowest common denominator of the human condition. 

To say that this is a heated debate would be the understatement of the year. I have spoken with many, many people and have done a fair amount of research to be able to back up the above statement. I will include all the links and then you can make your decision.

Facebook is a corporation not your friend.

Did Facebook get valued at $16 billion because they hang with you at Starbucks? Facebook is by it’s nature a collector of information. We sign up and give them all the information they need on our profile. We want our ”friends”  to know as much about us as possible.  Every bit of personal information you put on your profiles, notes, wall, and posted pictures are all compiled and used to sell to advertisers.

Don’t believe me check out this company. Usocial is an information broker who sells friend profiles on Facebook.

Their website says, ” Friends: people say they can’t be bought, though in this day and age it’s simply not the case. Our newest service will enable you to get more Facebook friends with ease by buying them in packages up to 5,000.

How we get you friends is simply by finding out exactly what industry, niche, or target market you are wanting to find people to target and then we go about attaining relevent friends for you and adding them to your Faceboook account. Every single person we gain for you will be real users and exactly relevant to what you are looking for — this is our guarantee.

On average and if marketed to correctly, every Facebook fan or friend you have is generally worth $1 to you per month, which is a figure anyone using this site correctly can back up. This means that even on a purchase of a 1,000 friend pack, you will not only return your investment in the first month, but earn more than five times what you’ve invested. Try and tell us that’s not a great investment.

Usocial seems extremly confident in their service. Does it make you mad that you might be manipulated to friend someone for the express purpose of monatary gain? It should.

Tomorrow we will talk about Facebook’s Terms of Service Agreement and how they use a service to track the sites you visit and the things you buy. Yes, they still use it.

Seth didn’t mean it. Accidents happen, right? A a good, Christian father I was supposed to realize that immediately. My head was telling me to let it go and give him a big hug so I wouldn’t wound his little ego. I was supposed to say, “It’s just stuff, son. We can always replace it.” 

…but I didn’t. “YOU DID WHAT?” I screamed. He cowared under my voice. Tears began streaming down his face, “I’m sorry, dad! It was an accident. I didn’t know your fishing pole was there.”

So it was true. I stared at my fishing pole mangled in three pieces. This was no oridinary pole. It was a Pflueger GX-7 – a $60 birthday purchase! I couldn’t believe it. The anger was boiling over, but I tried to keep it down. I was talking to myself, “chill out, Matt.”

We had just gotten back from fishing and in the excitement of Sean catching the big fish I forgot to take my pole out. Someone had taken the pole out and laid it next to the hatchback. Apperantly Seth went to close the trunk and my pole was a tragic casualty. I was so angry I stomped into the house like a little kid pouting.

I sat at my desk, “Seth!” I called. He walked over with his shoulders slumped. “Look, bro. I know it was an accident.” I gave him a hug and mumbled something about it just being stuff. The truth is I was still mad about it.

Yesterday we went fishing again. As I was getting the fishing stuff ready for the trip, Seth was helping me put the hooks on the swivel for Sean’s pole. I could feel him staring at me. I knew what he was thinking. He confessed that he felt really guilty about breaking my fishing pole and he was worried I wouldn’t have one.

I have great kids! For now, I am using my old Zebco 202 – it will still catch the big one!

I’m not gonna lie. I love swamps. There is something very mystical and beautiful about the idea of murky water and muddy landscapes. Unfortunately I live in Indiana. Not exactly the bastian of tropical delights.

No worries! We have a large smimming pool that has a small leak it in so the kids decided to take the turtle and I believe we are up to about 7 frogs and dump them in the pool. We also have several tadpoles which are in various stages of evolution.

My new favorite is the smallmouth bass that Sean caught. Wow! It is really cool to see a fish swimming around in a pool. Very cool. I am going to take some more pictures and post them up shortly. Meanwhile, if you live in Florida and have a baby alligator you want to migrate up to Hoosier country let me know. Put it up on Craiglist and I’ll come get it. Good times.

This was lunch. Good stuff and simple. Take a boneless chicken breast and marinate it overnight in the following sauce.

1 cup – Soy Sauce

2 tablespoons – Brown Sugar

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Combine the soy sauce and brown sugar into bowl. Place the chicken in and baste the sauce. After sitting for several hours or overnight – grill until browned. The brown sugar caramelizes. It provides a good, hardy flavor!

Let me know what you think once you have tried it.