Facebook Beacon finally bites the dust

It was a little over two years ago that Facebook launched Beacon - its ill-fated advertising service that cross-posted activity from other Web sites to your Facebook stream. Whilst the programme has long morphed into other aspects of the Facebook service, a ruling on Friday means the end of any remaining Beacon remnants as part of a lawsuit settlement against Facebook and some of its initial Beacon partners.

In the last two years, Facebook has explored many other ways of achieving things similar to Beacon (albeit without the privacy intrusion and auto-opt-in that the service originally launched with) - most notably the phenomenally successful Facebook Connect service. Connect lets Facebook users share things from other Web sites (and iPhone apps) however it's designed as a tool for content and activity sharing among Facebook users themselves, instead of being offered as a way of marketing a brand on the Facebook site.

[Via CNET]

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Beacon, Facebook Connect, FacebookBeacon, FacebookConnect