Facebook allows you to publish actions you take on other websites to your profile. For example, after you put something up for auction on eBay or purchase tickets to see a movie on Fandango, you can grant Facebook permission to generate a story that will show up on your friends’ home pages. Affiliate websites can only generate stories about your actions if you are logged in to Facebook at the same time. Keep in mind that affiliate websites never have access to your profile information, nor does Facebook receive any personal data about you from an affiliate site.

You have control over your information and who sees it. Affiliate websites can only generate stories about your actions if you are logged in to Facebook at the same time. You will always be notified when another website wants to publish a story about you. To opt out of having a story published, simply click "No, thanks."

If you change your mind after you’ve granted permission, you will have one more opportunity to opt out before the story is published on Facebook. You will also have the option to specify whether you want that website to always publish stories, notify you before publishing stories, or never publish stories about you.

Keep in mind that affiliate websites never have access to your profile information, nor does Facebook receive any personal data about you from an affiliate site.

Just as News Feed has always enabled you to see what your friends are up to on Facebook, now, depending on the privacy settings of everyone involved, people can share many of the actions they take on the rest of the web as well. People always have the option to refuse a News Feed story from another site. We want to give you the stories we think you’ll find most interesting and relevant; by including the actions you and your friends take both on and off of Facebook, we believe we will make News Feed even better at helping you stay in touch with your friends.

Facebook's communication with your actions on external sites is limited to the stories that site attempts to send back to Facebook. For example, if you are on eBay, and place a bid, put something up for sale, and write a review of a seller, Facebook will only be notified of the actions for which eBay wants to create a story. Thus, if eBay only wants to publish a story when you put something up for sale, only one story will be sent to Facebook after you have been notified. Facebook will have no access to other actions you have taken or other information involving your eBay account. Additionally, eBay has no access to information from your Facebook account.

To take advantage of the ability to generate stories from another site, you must be logged into Facebook while you interact with one of these affiliated sites. You will always be notified and given the opportunity to opt out of having any particular story published. Please keep in mind that affiliate websites never have access to your profile information, nor does Facebook receive any personal data about you from an affiliate site.

Facebook is currently affiliated with the following sites:

• AllPosters.com
• Blockbuster
• BustedTees
• CBSSports.com
• CBSSports.com Fantasy
• Citysearch
• College Humor
• Davematthewsband.com
• Dotspotter
• Epicurious.com
• Expo TV
• Fandango
• Flip.com
• GameFly
• Hotwire
• IWON
• JOINRED.COM
• Joost
• KeithUrban.net
• Kiva.org
• Kongregate
• Live Nation
• LiveJournal
• Mercantila
• Overstock.com
• Pronto.com
• Seamlessweb
• SHOP.COM
• STA Travel 193
• Station.com
• The Knot
• The New York Times
• Travelocity
• Trip Advisor
• TypePad
• Viagogo
• Walk Hard
• Warehouse.davematthewsband.com
• WeddingChannel.com
• Yelp
• Zappos.com

If you are logged in to Facebook and take an action on an affiliated site, the website will alert you that it has a story it would like to send to your Facebook profile. You can then choose to take the following actions:

1. You can click the ‘Learn More’ link to find out more about that story or edit your privacy settings for these external stories.
2. You can click the ‘This isn’t me’ link if the Facebook account does not match the person using the external site. In this case, Facebook will never publish the story or otherwise share any information with the user’s friends on Facebook.
3. You can click ‘No Thanks’ in which case Facebook will never publish that story or otherwise share any information with your friends on Facebook.
4. You can click 'Close' or simply ignore the notification in which case the story will be sent to Facebook, but will not be published on the site. Next time you navigate to the Facebook Home page after interacting with an affiliate site, you’ll receive a second reminder that the affiliate website would like to publish a story on your behalf. There are three things you can do with this story—approve the story by clicking Okay, remove the story by clicking "Remove", or ignore the entire message by doing nothing. If you approve the story and click "Okay", the story will be published in your Mini-Feed and may appear in your friends' News Feeds. If you remove the story using the "Remove" link next to it, the story will never appear in your Mini-Feed or a friend’s News Feed. If you ignore the whole message, it will go away after a few days and nothing will be published to Mini-Feed or News Feed. However, when you ignore a story, it remains queued, so that the next time you generate a Beacon story, this home page message will have two stories, instead of one.
http://www.hs.facebook.com/help/?faq=12625

You can edit your privacy settings any time you are notified that an affiliated site has a story it would like to send to Facebook directly from that notification. You can also edit your privacy settings at any time directly on the Privacy Settings for External Websites page. On this page you have the option to specify for each website whether you want that website to always publish stories, notify you before publishing stories, or never publish stories for you. If you select "Always" publish stories, you will still be notified on that website via a pop-up when you generate a story, but instead of needing to approve it again on your home page, it will go straight to your profile.

You can opt-out of this feature entirely by going to the Privacy Settings for External Websites page. Simply select the 'Don't allow any websites to send stories to my profile' option.

When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. If a Facebook user clicks "No Thanks" on the affiliate site notification, Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well.

If you ignore the pop-up box, the story generated will be sent to Facebook, but will not be published. The next time you visit your home page, you’ll see a message remind you that this story is being sent. You can then choose to approve the story and publish it, remove the story and never publish it, or ignore the story and act on it at a later time. What happens if an action I take triggers In this case, unless you have selected to always publish stories from that website from the "External Websites" section of the Privacy page, you will have another chance remove the story the next time you go to your home page. A home page announcement lets you know that there is a story about to be published, and you can click the "Remove" link next to it. This prevents the story from being published and the story will never appear in your Mini-Feed or a friend’s News Feed.

In this case, unless you have selected to always publish stories from that website from the "External Websites" section of the Privacy page, you will have another chance to remove the story the next time you go to your home page. A home page announcement lets you know that there is a story about to be published, and you can click the "Remove" link next to it. This prevents the story from being published and the story will never appear in your Mini-Feed or a friend’s News Feed.

In this case, no story will be published by Facebook.

In this case, unless you have selected to always publish stories from that website from the "External Websites" section of the Privacy page, you will have another chance remove the story the next time you go to your home page. A home page announcement lets you know that there is a story about to be published, and you can click the "Remove" link next to it. This prevents the story from being published and the story will never appear in your Mini-Feed or a friend’s News Feed.

Right now, the only option is to say "No Thanks" (on the external site) or ‘Remove’ on the Facebook home page announcement to stories you don't like.

Right now there is no way to restrict a story from only certain people. If you are trying to hide a story from certain people, the only option is to say "No Thanks" or "Remove" the story from your home page.

Don't worry, your friend will see that a story has been sent to their profile the next time they see their home page. They can then remove the story and prevent it from being published. If you share a computer, make sure you log out of Facebook when you leave to prevent this from happening.

These stories will not be published in your Mini-Feed or in the News Feeds of your friends. The stories will be removed from your queue of stories and you will not see a notification about those particular stories on your home page again.

When you leave the home page or choose to ignore the home page notification, it will go away after a few days and nothing will be published to Mini-Feed or News Feed. However, when you ignore a story, it remains queued, so that the next time you generate a Beacon story, this home page message will have two stories, instead of one.

Checking the box "Always publish stories sent to my profile from this site" means that you will no longer be notified twice about stories being sent to your profile for that particular site. You will still be notified by a pop-up on the site generating the action, but you will no longer see the second notification on your home page.

To learn more about Facebook's Beacon feature please visit our Beacon FAQ page.

This program is no longer available to new sites. To integrate actions into your website, you can use Facebook Connect.