Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologized to the social networking site's user base in response to a rising crescendo of complaints that its advertising platform, Beacon, is too intrusive.
More importantly, Facebook is now letting users opt out of the service - a step that it has clearly been reluctant to take.
Facebook has attempted to position the month-old service, which transmits users' activities on other sites, as a way "to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the Web." That's one way of looking at it. However, the service also supports advertisers that wish to piggyback on recommendations and comments of people using their products.