From Josh Quittner:

A lot of people say that Facebook has jumped the shark. That’s flat out wrong. In fact, Facebook is now being devoured by the shark. There’s so much blood in the water, it’s attracting other sharks. And if Facebook’s not careful, one of them is bound to come along and finish it off. I’ve never seen anything like it in the annals of fast-rising tech companies that fail.

It seems like the people that are most upset about Bacon Bits are the same folks that have been shilling for the company with reckless abandon.

UPDATE: Adam Ostrow confirms (as was suggested above) that the majority of Facebook users don’t even know what Beacon is. I’m not sure whether that is actually good news or bad news for Facebook, but a recent update on Mashable also alerted to the fact that the company has capitulated on the privacy aspects anyway.

UPDATE 2: Hold the presses - Om Malik gets a word in edgewise:

So essentially he’s saying the information transmitted won’t be stored but will perhaps be interpreted. Will this happen in real time? If that is the case, then the advertising “optimization” that results from “transmissions” is going to continue. Right!

Duly (and repeatedly) noted.

UPDATE 3: Does this mean the Quittner quote is memorialized?

I’d call this “stealthy postponement“:

While it falls short of the global opt-out feature that our readers seemed to think Facebook would announce in today’s poll, this seems like a reasonable change that will make Beacon much more transparent. On the other hand, as Beacon adds more partners, being notified of all of these actions each time you login to Facebook could be a huge nuisance.

Beyond the obvious aggravation already pointed out, does anyone really think that the data isn’t going to continue to be actively collected for some future re-release? Or simply for sale to the highest bidder?

Alley Insider translated the Facebook PR (it’s rated-F, as in not for the Facebook Fanboy). Peter Kafka added this:

But! Facebook continues to apply a creepy double-standard about information. It’s more than happy to share your personal data with friends and/or advertisers, but it remains fetishistic about its own privacy: The WSJ reports that Facebook is trying to force Harvard alumni magazine 02138 to take down court documents it published alongside a story about the legal battle over Facebook’s origins.

The docs, which have been republished by Valleywag and others, make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg come off like a nasty, scheming jackass.

Like I said…stealthy postponement.

UPDATE: Computer Associate’s security team confirms what instincts could have told you.

UPDATE 2: Jay Goldman deconstructs the offending code (and provides resources for blocking it).

UPDATE 3: Of course they do.