Facebook is a JERK

News reports have been slowly popping up all along the West Coast (and supposedly, the East Coast, too, but I haven't heard anything, have you?) about a new Facebook marketing strategy that seems to be an invasive new application which is pissing off users.

This "strategy" publicizes your purchases on your friends' Minifeeds, even when you're not logged into Facebook, unless you click a "No Thanks" box on the page of your purchase. It lists what you bought, where you bought it, and at what time.

WHAT?!

But Tee, how are they doing this when it's not even an application that you can add or opt out of? What kind of sorcery is this? Well, friends - it's called cookies. Using Javascript, cookies are inserted onto your computer that tells websites who you are, what you're doing, and then allows those websites to publish that information on Facebook.

Say you go to Amazon, (which, for the record, I don't know if Amazon has embedded this feature yet - although Fandango, Overstock, Gamefly, and others have) and buy some books, movies, presents for your friends and family. The website where you're doing the purchasing doesn't notify its consumers that this new feature has been implemented, but you're supposed to know to check a very small "No Thanks" box somewhere on the purchasing page.

Sneaky, infringing on privacy rights, and TOTALLY LAME?! Yeah, I think so.

For more information:
Join a Facebook petition group.
Read this guy's blog to find out what happened to him.