Can I prevent xmarks from sharing my bookmarks?

I have the same concern and this doesn't answer the question. "Remains Private" doesn't really help and I'm concerned that if this is more than just a storage mechanism for me to synchronize my bookmarks between computers, I'm going to have to find another solution. If I can't opt out 100% on at the very least a set aside folder in my bookmarks, then I am risking too much with company-related bookmarks.

Furthermore, how can I make sure that data previously submitted won't be aggregated by your servers if I remove the service?

Actually, I suppose one option is to run your own server, which I think I will start on today:

http://wiki.foxmarks.com/wiki/Foxmark...

But still- I think having a non-indexed folder would be a good idea for this service.

I agree with The Deej, that there needs to be an option to default bookmarks to private, that you could selectively allow some to be public. The feature to have things private is the main important thing differentiating your offering from all the others out there. If I wanted a social bookmarking capability I would have used one of the other zillion out there. At least allow some things to be private if not allowing a default setting for such, otherwise you'll force many of us to have to run our own servers.

There is too much risk that my private bookmarks could accidentally become public now. For example I can have URL's which contain account info which are shared by fellow co-workers that is not meant to be public. Now if we both use xmarks they can end up as public links. (very bad)

Please don't end up just being another social bookmarking site. Allow some privacy and you will differentiate yourself from all the other ones out there. It was your key feature IMHO.

I'm with the others. I do NOT want any of my bookmarks analyzed for any reason. I do NOT want all those extra features added which will only make the program slower and more bloated. Please, please, please stick to the KISS principle... Keep It Simple, Stupid. Foxmarks is a great utility. Don't ruin it.

And another thing. The survey y'all asked us to fill out was not very good. It required us to rank every single item, even if we did not like it/them. We could not leave any choices blank, even if we do not want more than one feature. This will make your survey results skewed. For example, I do not want Xmarks to alphabetize my bookmarks for me. I do not want it to delete duplicates (I actually have many entries duplicated for a very good reason). Poorly conducted, to say the least.

One more thing before closing. You'd think an outfit making an add-on for Firefox would understand that its users are fairly savvy and therefore would be against bloat while being more aware of possible privacy concerns. The features y'all are touting for Xmarks completely blows that all away. What are you thinking???

I just want to add my voice to what others are saying. If I'd wanted a service to suggest sites based on my bookmark preferences, there are others I could have used. Foxmarks has been my favourite Firefox add-on, but I *really* don't want this new Xmarks service, and will now have to look for some other alternative.

syncplaces turns out to be the solution, just installed it now and it looks to work perfect. Another one about to delete his foxmarks account

just wanted to state my opinion, i too think this is a bad idea...

what about a fork, let foxmarks be the way it is, and for social bookmarking use xmarks?

At first, I thought I was the only one who had a problem with this when I posted the question, but now that I know I'm not the only one, having the "trust us, we know what's best for you" approach is not going to work with this. People take privacy seriously, and I'm being serious when I say that I don't want to share my bookmarks. You guys have a great service, but if you don't let ME choose whether or not to share MY bookmarks, you can believe that the same people who blogged about you and praised you for your work will be the very same ones to condemn you for not taking peoples' privacy seriously anymore.

To quote your privacy policy (http://wiki.foxmarks.com/wiki/Foxmark...), "Your privacy, and the privacy of all registered users of foxmarks.com, is important to us". All I have to say is "PROVE IT"!

I would have to agree with others in this thread. I really want to use Xmarks, but if there's not a way to exclude certain bookmarks from indexing, I don't think I can use the service.

I too would like to express my disappointment at the way this appears to be going.

The privacy issues here are potentially significant enough to concern me but, add to that the changes in function that would either have no interest for me or even worse would actually detract from it's usability, and I'm looking for an alternative solution.

I understand that certain intrusive new features can be disabled such as the site info feature but, as many others have commented, things like the layout of bookmarks should be left alone. This is, or can be, a personal preference matter including the use of duplicate bookmarks. (I have several duplicates especially in folders meant for specific users. My kids have their own folders for instance). Similarly, alphabetising would frustrate me. I like my bookmarks to appear chronologically untill "I choose" when and how to reorder them to suit me.

On the subject of alternatives, if this is going to be forced on us without allowing suitable control, I will be looking into "syncplaces", mentioned above, but am very interested in the Mozilla "Weave" solution that appears to be on the horizon in very timely fashion.

Foxmarks has served me well for some time across a couple of my own computers as well as with a portable version of firefox on a flash drive and various live linux and win-pe cd situations so will be sad to part company. It's been nice and dependable.

I don't know!
You get comfortable with something and then "progress" comes along to "improve"
things for you...
I'm sure some people will love it but I'll be declining updates untill I either find a suitable alternative or it ceases to work. Otherwise it's back to manual methods.
Not good.

just adding my voice of concern

I am also pretty dissatisfied about the way foxmarks/xmarks is handling my privacy. I started to have my doubts when it started suggesting tags for me - but thought that my privacy was sure to remain a priority. But I guess not.
Am also switching to syncplaces so I can keep my bookmarks synchronized while protecting my privacy and confidential bookmarks; I was going to use foxmarks with my own server, but then also read that they will be (to paraphrase) keep tabs on these users as well.
For what it's worth, I am thankful for the service they provided me before, but not letting me opt out on sharing my bookmarks is a deal breaker.

"In response to your requests we’re adding an opt-out feature that will exclude your bookmarks from our discovery engine"

That actually would change a lot again. Good to see that you stopped your 'go away if you dont like it' mentality. Lets wait for the update.

I tried out FF3.1 beta with Weave now and this one as well is working very good, no issues with that.

>>Good to see that you stopped your 'go away if you dont like it' mentality. Lets wait for the update.<<

Personally I'd be interested to know how many people have already gone away. I think I probably have to count as one of them, since I've deleted my account, and Foxmarks (for some bizarre reason) retains our IDs forever and will not allow us to 're-join' with the same ID.

I'm not too bothered. To be honest, I've lost trust in the people behind Foxmarks, so I guess I'm now a syncplaces user.

Time to set up my own server. Now, how do I get my information purged from yours?

Not being totally synical I have decided to take Xmarks nee Foxmarks at their word and have updated to and am now using Xmarks.

I was happy when they decided to enable opting out of aggregation and was also pleased to find that the layout of bookmarks are not affected (in Firefox at least).

Perhaps being something of a luddite I really prefer to stick with just the features I'm used to from Foxmarks ie: bookmark and password synchronisation only and have disabled the new search features. (Bearing in mind that password syncing was a new feature once which I happily use relying on the assurances given about the security employed.)

When opting out of bookmark aggregation I noted the comment about how this service is what provides the company's income stream. I assume they are paid from advertising associated with search suggestions.

Personally I do not like the use of "targeted" advertising. It seldom feels very "inteligent" or particularly appropriate but I can see that it might be of use to others.

I do think, however, that as someone who has opted out of aggregation there is still a value that I and others like me will be able to bring to Xmarks such as our ability contribute to the feedback on websites. I notice this function is still active despite having disabled the search features.

Independent feedback as opposed to which company has the largest advertising budget or most aggressive marketing strategy can improve the relevancy of search suggestions thereby enhancing the benefits of using Xmarks.

On the subject of the deletion of accounts and data it does seem a little strange that old usernames are not able to be recycled if there is no longer any data associated with them.

Perhaps a little technical explanation of why this is so wouldn't go amiss to allay any concerns.

For now this particular luddite is going with the flow - up to a point - sort of...!

Eric and JJ, I'm glad to see that you have added the "Change Bookmark Contribution" option. I appreciate the fact that you really do seem to respect the privacy of others and I am satisfied with this change. Thank you for taking this concern seriously.