Librarians and privacy

What were librarians, the guardians of privacy when it comes to the Patriot Act and pornographers on the internet, saying about Facebook, the social networking site. Well, if you google "librarians Facebook privacy" you'll find they were practically wetting themselves in their eagerness to be relevant.

In today's Wall Street Journal Randall Rothenberg calls the news of the shutdown of Facebook's Beacon program, a victory for "market forces."

Within the space of a month or so, Facebook launched and then shut down an advertising program called Beacon that alerted users to purchases and other activities their "friends" made outside Facebook. The episode has been called many things: "annoying," "upsetting," "creepy," a "nightmare," a "privacy hairball." I call it proof that when it comes to the evolution of the Internet, market forces work.

Apparently, Facebook subscribers didn't like their friends being exploited, even if they didn't think of it in privacy terms. When the internet users respond quickly, and massively, it saves us all from more government regulations, says Rothenberg.

The internet is not free. It's supported by advertising. The advertisers using interactive technology is estimated by Rothenberg to be at $20 billion in 2007, growing to $62 billion by 2011. But they overreached, and alert subscribers said NO.

Still, I've got to wonder where were all those librarians who wanted to keep terrorists' library patterns private and fought the Patriot Act, and not put filters on library computers to protect children because it might interfer with "information gathering." Interesting concerns, these liberals.