Facebook & Their Partners Broadcast Your Purchases

Filed in archive General on November 26, 2007

I'm not a priss when it comes to privacy; I don't get all up in arms every time I think my personal info has been passed from one company to another. But I have my limits. And the latest move from Facebook (which I predict will become the CB radio of the '00s) is almost shocking in its invasion of privacy.

Read this from Alpha Consumer:

This past weekend, after my sister found a great pair of Dansko clogs and ordered them online from Zappos.com, her facebook friends received a newsfeed message that told them she had just "found something cool at Zappos.com." Since she hadn't planned on announcing her purchase to so many people, she quickly deleted the message but not before feeling that her privacy had been invaded.

It turns out Facebook has relationships with online retailers, including Zappos.com, Fandango.com, and Overstock.com, that allow the social networking site to post information when purchases are made.

Yikes. So if you're a Facebook member, unless you go out of your way to tell Facebook not to, they will broadcast your purchases to people in your "network."

Yes, fine, I don't really care if people know that I bought a pair of Pumas. But it takes a lot of nerve for not just Facebook, but these companies that have partnered with them, to make it the default for your personal purchases to become public knowledge. It doesn't matter if the people receiving the message are only part of your "network" on the service; there are plenty of people that create networks that include people who are acquaintances only or people that they know only professionally. It's potentially embarrassing to have such messages sent out about your buying habits.

This is why I am not a Facebook member. And why you shouldn't have a 23-year-old running a billion dollar business.