TechCrunch has been able to obtain some details about what Facebook is going to announce next week at ad:tech next week. At least part of the announcement is said to revolve around a project that has been known internally as ‘Project Beacon’ – an apparent collaboration between Facebook and various 3rd party sites that will allow Facebook to pipe into user’s feeds information such as recent purchases on the 3rd party site (MG has just bought “Everyone Poops” at Barnes&Noble.com).

I’m completely with Nick O’Neil here thinking this sounds like a bad idea. Who on Earth wants everyone to know what they purchased on another site, and who on Earth would care what their friend purchased? Maybe if it was something boast-worthy like a new Porsche, I could see it, but you don’t buy those online, you buy things like books and movies (and Canadian prescription drugs) – which you already list in your Interests area on Facebook. They might as well just add a personal spending counter to every friend feed (MG spent $85 on crap this month at Amazon).

There is definitely a line between interesting information and information that is clearly just there to use for advertisers and Facebook appears ready to cross it. As Nick rightly points out, if users were up in arms when Facebook first launched the ‘News Feed’ last year, what are they going to think of this? I, for one, liked the ‘News Feeds’ from day 1 last year and didn’t see what all the fuss was about (all of that info was already out there, Facebook just streamlined it), but this is something different because it’s not about keeping your friends up-to-date with useful information about yourself, it’s simply marketing dressed up as information about yourself.

Perhaps the first two rules of ‘Project Beacon’ should be: You DO NOT tell the public about ‘Project Beacon’.