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Beacon formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon would report to Facebook on its members' activities on third-party sites that also participate with Beacon. These activities would be published to users' news feed. This would occur even when users were not connected to Facebook and would happen without the knowledge of the Facebook user. One of the main concerns was that Beacon did not give the user the option to block the information from being sent to Facebook.〔()〕 Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007 with 44 partner websites. The controversial service, which became the target of a class-action lawsuit, was shut down in September 2009. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, characterized Beacon on the Facebook Blog in November 2011 as a "mistake". Although Beacon was unsuccessful, it did pave the way for Facebook Connect, which has become widely popular.〔()〕 ==Privacy concerns== Beacon created considerable controversy soon after it was launched, due to privacy concerns. On November 20, 2007, civic action group MoveOn.org created a Facebook group and online petition demanding that Facebook not publish their activity from other websites without explicit permission from the user. In fewer than ten days, this group gained 50,000 members.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy! (''Facebook group'') )〕 After the class action Lawsuit, ''Lane v. Facebook, Inc.'', Beacon was changed to require that any actions transmitted to the website would have to be approved by the Facebook user before being published. On November 29, 2007, Stefan Berteau, a security researcher for Computer Associates, published a note on his tests of the Beacon system. He found that data was still being collected and sent to Facebook despite users' opt-outs and not being logged into Facebook at the time. This revelation was in direct contradiction to the statements made by Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of marketing and operations, in an interview with ''The New York Times'' published the same day: Q. If I buy tickets on Fandango, and decline to publish the purchase to my friends on Facebook, does Facebook still receive the information about my purchase? On November 30, 2007, Louise Story of ''The New York Times'' blogged that not only had she received the impression that Beacon would be an explicit opt-in program, but that Coca-Cola had also had a similar impression, and as a result, had chosen to withdraw their participation in Beacon. On December 5, 2007, Facebook announced that it would allow people to opt out of Beacon. Founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the controversy.
On August 12, 2008, a class action lawsuit was filed against Facebook, Blockbuster Inc., Overstock.com, Fandango, Hotwire.com, GameFly, Zappos.com, and any additional "John Doe" corporations that activated Facebook Beacon when they released their common member's personal information to their Facebook user friends without their consent through the Facebook Beacon program. The lawsuit alleges the release of the information was a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, Electronic Communication Privacy Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and the California Computer Crime Law. On September 21, 2009, Facebook announced that it would shut down the service. On October 23, 2009, a class action notice was sent to Facebook users who may have used Beacon. The proposed settlement would require Facebook to pay $9.5 million into a settlement fund. The named plaintiffs (approximately 20) would be awarded a total of $41,000, and the plaintiff's lawyers would receive millions from the settlement fund. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Facebook Beacon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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