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Presumably having learned something from the Beacon fiasco, Facebook has announced a new feature very similar to it called Facebook Connect.  Facebook Connect will allow sites that choose to participate to share user names and logins, so once a user logs into Facebook they will automatically be logged into the participating sites.

Facebook Connect will also show the Connect website’s a user has visited on their newsfeed.  Anyone who remembers Beacon is sure to be bristling at the moment, but you can relax.  Facebook has learned its lesson and this time will provide privacy settings that will allow you to control what actions will appear on your newsfeed.  This is what they should have done with Beacon, but instead they didn’t even inform users that their activity would be posted at all!  They’ve also promised that websites wanting to participate will be carefully screened.  No word on how they plan to protect all those usernames and passwords from being stolen however. This kind of program could easily become a hackers dream if proper security measures aren’t taken.

So far, the list of sites signed up for the program include Movable Type, Amiando, CBS.com, CitySearch, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo, and Xobni.

This new feature is sure to be met with trepidation by many Facebook users, but it looks like they have taken steps to insure the Beacon disaster won’t happen again.

Read [PCWorld]