Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: News

This year, the Grinch has a new name: Facebook.

The social-networking Web site has ruined the holidays for many users whose private online gift purchases were publicly displayed on the Facebook.com News Feed, inspiring potential lawsuits and a massive wave of online protest.

Facing these objections, Facebook caved to pressure this week to reform its Beacon program, an advertising platform that broadcasts user purchases from partner businesses like Travelocity, Fandango and Overstock.com.

"We're moving into an era in which people's individual activities are being followed and parsed for advertising," Annenberg professor Joseph Turow said.

After complaints of privacy violations and the inability to block public information sharing of consumer histories, Facebook altered Beacon from an opt-out to an opt-in system, and upon further pressure, has allowed users to turn off the advertising feature altogether.

"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement. "We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it."

But mere apologies were not enough for the 50,000 users who signed an online petition sponsored by the civic action group MoveOn.org.

Action was demanded, and results were relatively quick: The Beacon program had only been operating for one month before Facebook announced the change.

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