Looks like the A-lister brigade is out in force against the opt-in lunacy that is Facebook Beacon. Or, so it would seem, anyway, with Doc Searls, Dave Winer, and Jason Calacanis (and a few others) making some good ol’ impassioned pleas To Do The Right Thing, as this kind of default opt-in status is deceptive, and as Mr. Calacanis eloquently puts it (and I suggest this without a hint of sarcasm) they are Data Hogs as they are “amassing tons of information, selling it under false pretense, and not sharing it with the folks who gave it to them”.

It all makes sense to me, of course.

Will it make sense — as well as the real essence of their cri de coeur — to … say, for instance my *brother*? Or my wife? Or, my non-tech friends? How about *your* non-tech friends?

I mean, will average Facebookers care?

Will they care that Facebook isn’t making available in an easy XML format a copy of all of their data and transactions, available for download at a push of a button? That Facebook is actively scouring the transactions of their life so that it might be monetized now — or later, for that matter?

Let’s phrase it another way.

Do average Facebookers know or care that almost everything they upload *TO* Facebook is then *owned* by Facebook? That everything could be used / potentially abused / sold off in all kinds of ways that makes Facebook Beacon sound like of kindergardenish?

Let’s boil it down even more.

Do you think most Facebook users have even *thought* about reading the Terms of Service?

In an age where we *still* — and will *continue* to until our children our teenagers — read about how an individual’s silly exploits become public knowledge unbeknownst to them, and that news about potentially indiscrete activities could jeopardize your current and future job prospects are still very much News …

The answer to all of the above questions is “Average Facebook users neither know, nor care about the intricacies and *importance* of owning, tending, and guarding, one’s personal data, information, and relationships — unless it directly and overtly impacts their own personal sense of privacy today.”

And Facebook knows it.

In fact, its billion dollar valuation hinges on it.

It hinges on the fact that somewhere deep inside Facebook, I am sure that marketers and venture capitalists are cooking up ways to milk the herd of all its worth without actually alerting the herd to what its doing.

You know, like that privacy thing about the news feed about a year ago.

And that’s all that it really boils down to.

As long as enough people don’t notice or complain about these issues around Facebook nothing will be done. Its in Facebook’s best interests, in fact, that nothing be done.

Getting back to the point at hand, though. Will the cries of the blogging intelligentia be *enough* to galvanize forces within and throughout Facebook? Maybe. Perhaps if there are enough slow news days in the upcoming days and weeks, this could get enough publicity in the mainstream media — via MoveOn.org, for example — for it to catalyze change through public pressure.

But methinks that best way it *could* be done is through a grassroots means *within* Facebook. Someone has to start a group — someone with thousands of friends (like, the limit — 5000) who knows thousands of other connectors — to spread the word.

Because it has to be an attitudinal change, really. And that’s hard to do when its coming from an outside force — it really has to come from within.

You know what I mean.

Getting people curious about what Facebook is really about and what they’re really doing.

Get people interested about what they’re giving up in exchange so that they don’t have to go through the onerous task of actually *emailing* people, but messaging them through Facebook.

Because only if we’re able to do that *first*, will we able to get people to care about Facebook handing over all their data.

Without caring about what Facebook can or can do, and what it does and doesn’t own, nobody will ever want to know or care about these other shenannigans, which make sense to you and I.

But not, say, people like my brother.

And perhaps your brother too.