Scribd Facebook Instant Personalization Is a Privacy Nightmare
Given Scribd's dodgy reputation (for example, http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2010/09/scribd...) I was curious to see what they'd do with Instant Personalization which has a high creepiness factor even on a good day. True to form, they didn't disappoint.
I've been tracking the security/privacy problems with Instant Personalization for a while; my recent post might be relevant: http://33bits.org/2010/09/28/instant-personalization-privacy...
I'm also curious to see how things will turn out when a whole bunch of YC startups get Instant Personalization access, as YCRFS7 promises.
Why do sites insist on default opt-out? Everyone here seems to be blaming Facebook. Certainly, Instant Personalization is a Facebook tool that Scribd used but the core of the matter is Scribd created yet another feature that is opt-out.
I consider opt-out a special case of bait-and-switch. You offered X and I signed up for X. Two months later you added Y and change my settings so now I am signed up for X + Y. Since X != X + Y, I consider X + Y to be a new product Z. I signed up for X, you switched me to Z. Bait-and-switch as far as I'm concerned. Doesn't matter to me if Z = 99% of X. Z != X and the switch happened without my prior consent.
I'm sure in the short-term numbers game, opt-out wins opt-in by far. Grab as many eyeballs as you can in the cheapest way possible. In the long term, people stop using your services. There's a reason I'll never use RealPlayer even though the company has completely changed since the early 2000s. I just don't trust them anymore. Same with Facebook. I just don't trust them with my data. Same with Google Buzz. Even though I'm comfortable with Google managing emails, I can no longer trust the Buzz team. Privacy loss doesn't have to directly happen to me in order for me to feel violated.
This is a huge reason that I do not use Facebook to login to any site -- pretty much every site that offers that functionality asks to be able to post items for you (in your feed), to send emails, etc.
It seems like some site owners' dreams are to turn you into a bot for their own promotional purposes, or to just use your voice as their personal bullhorn.
I'll stick with registering to sites using a "plain" login (or OpenID, where available) -- at least that way, I have a bit more control over the way my online identity is used.
This is the reason why I stopped using Facebook once instant personalization and the embeddable like buttons were added.
The risk of unknowingly spamming people was too big for me and I just quit. I don't even care as much about the privacy issues as I care about these services doing things and post stuff in my name without any way to stop it or even just indication that they are doing it
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who actually likes features like this.
As long as I'm given more relevant content, feel free to use my publicly posted information.
I suggest installing the FacebookBlocker extension:
Whether we like it or not, Facebook is as much a part of the web ecosystem as Google. Instead of trying to fight it, just embrace it.