Yes, Facebook is at it again. Now they're making us have to opt out of sharing information with certain third-party websites. They call it "Instant Personalization." I call BS.

If you haven't seen it already, here's the notification screen that appears when you log into Facebook for the first time after they implemented this change.

When you click on Learn More, you're taken to this page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/sitetour/connect.php

There are two sections on this page. The first is about the new Universal Like "feature" (also referred to as "social plugins"), which adds a Like button to all sorts of non-Facebook sites (e.g. CNN, New York Times). When you click it, a notice will be published to your FB stream. I haven't quite figured out all the implications of this yet, so will write a separate post about it later. In the meantime, here is an excellent article from PCMag.com about how it works. Suffice it to say, I won't be clicking "Like" on anybody's website anytime soon.

Facebook: Privacy Enemy Number One?

The second section on the page is about the Instant Personalization. Here's what Facebook says about it:

You'll find a personal and social experience the moment you arrive on our select partner sites—Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp. We're working closely with these partners so you can quickly connect with your friends and see relevant content on their sites. These sites personalize your experience using your public Facebook information.

Note that Facebook had a comment period about this proposed change at the beginning of April. Here's a link to their blog post that addresses concerns people had about it. I don't really give them any credit for this because, based on their history, they were never going to change anything regardless of the feedback they received.

I occasionally visit Yelp but have no interest in the other two sites, so I'm still not completely sure what exactly the benefit is supposed to be to me of having them personalized based on information I've given to Facebook. (And, remember, Facebook automatically makes certain information public—Name, Profile Photo, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages—so it's this info that these sites now have access to.)

What I do know is when a company forces users to opt out of something (instead of letting them opt into it), it's more in their interest than yours. In this case, the three websites will, at a minimum, be using your info to target advertising to you that will increase the chances of them making money from those ads (and I assume Facebook will get a slice of the ad revenue pie as well).

To stop these sites from getting your FB info when you visit them:

• Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites
• Click the Edit Setting button beside Instant Personalization
• Uncheck the box that says "Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features..."

A message will appear to try to convince you you're making a BIG mistake by doing this... Click Confirm to complete the process.

Now you might think that that's all there is to it. Ummm... not so much. As the little warning box says:

Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application.

Yes, that's right. You may never go to these sites yourself, but they could still have personal information about you. Lovely.

To block the applications, go to the following three Facebook pages and click the Block Application link in the left-hand panel, under the page's profile picture.

Microsoft Docs
Pandora
Yelp

I hope enough people immediately turn off permissions for these applications so other companies will see that it's not worth getting involved in these Facebook initiatives that are designed to take advantage of their users' trust.

For more information about Facebook's social plugins and instant personalization, here are Facebook's FAQ about them.

Posted in Facebook,How To,My Two Cents,Privacy/Security,Social Media