Latest target of MoveOn: Facebook

Facebook is experimenting with ways to make money. Beacon, unveiled this month, lets marketers deliver ads to individual Facebook users based on information they share with friends, including age, gender and location. Marketers can also create pages where users can become fans of the brand.

Since then, several groups have popped up to protest the new system, none getting the quick momentum or publicity MoveOn.org has. Privacy groups such as the Center for Digital Democracy have asked the Federal Trade Commission to step up scrutiny of what they call increasingly invasive marketing practices of Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Not everyone agrees. Longtime MoveOn.org member and online advertising network executive Scott Rafer is so enraged, he's moving on from MoveOn.

"If they wish to go after consumer privacy rights legislation, then fine," he said. "When they are trying to get a bunch of people together to stage a sit-in at a for-profit start-up in Palo Alto, then give me a break, get me off your e-mail list. Even if this does turn out to be the right cause, it's the wrong organization."

jessica.guynn@latimes.com.