Facebook rethinks.

It seems your everyman isn’t exactly thrilled with being a marketing tool, so Facebook is rethinking that grand adventure. Paul at Hee-haw marketing has an interesting take on it, including a handy Techcrunch link describing how to opt-out (though I haven’t seen how to opt-out completely yet.) If you couldn’t opt-out it might be hard to surprise friends and family with holiday gifts. (Feel free to imagine your own unpleasant scenarios for public announcement of your purchases.)

Gigaom has some nice analysis and speculation that the move had something to do with a potential big investment in Facebook from deep pockets worn by a guy named Li Ka-Shing. Yes, like the cash register sound, well old-school cash registers.

In any case, if there is a backtracking of the Beacon system, to me it sounds reluctant and possibly only partial.

In a broader sense, the community criticisms of Beacon could be an indicator that, while people will sometimes help market a brand, that decision belongs to them. It’s a deal breaker. Also, if you want an indicator that the sky is blue, look up on a clear day.

[tags] facebook, beacon [/tags]