I first started using Facebook because a publicist suggested it. It's been an interesting few years. On occasions FB has been incredibly useful. At other times it's been boring. Occasionally it's been infuriating. The vast majority of the people I've interacted with there have been lovely. The wonder, for me anyway, is that there have been <a href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/03/31/no-free-books-around-here/" target="_blank">so few oddballs and nutters</a>.

But that's over now. Later today I am deleting my FB account and fan page, and deleting it permanently, if I possibly can (not letting FB hang on to things in 'private' which it will do with a 'normal' account deletion). Why? That last sentence gives you a clue. I don't like the way this massive company deals with privacy, and it's clear to me things are getting worse.

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Back in the beginning Facebook was great on several fronts.
<ul>
	<li>You could reach people easily and track them when they moved to different places</li>
	<li>You could post photos and interesting snippets of information</li>
	<li>You could crack jokes with people who usually shared your sense of humour</li>
</ul>
Here are a few of the bad things that have emerged though.
<ul>
	<li>Applications. Farmville. All that dross. I want none of it and while you can block some of it there's always something new that comes along demanding you deal with it. I don't want to waste time this way.</li>
	<li>People pestering you. To go to things you can't possibly attend even if you knew what they were. To become a fan on their pages, often for things that mean nothing to you. There isn't a day goes by that I don't have to delete something that's frankly a waste of time.</li>
	<li>Round robin messages of no importance in the inbox.</li>
	<li>The plain fact you accept as friends people you don't even know. Most are lovely. A few aren't.</li>
</ul>
All of this I could swallow were it not for the fact that Facebook is messing with my privacy. I accept the thing is free, and that means you get to see ads. But the privacy issue goes a lot further than ads. There's a stack more information they keep about you, and the people you interact with. And the way they handle that data -- like the look of FB itself -- keeps changing, without ever so much as asking the people affected -- you and me.

Last week FB introduced some new rules on privacy. What they means is that unless you opt out your FB data will be shared widely, outside FB, with any company FB chooses. That causes me great concern. Not just me either. Read what the Canadian government's <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/facebook-users-risk-blackmail-privacy-czar-warns/article1545444/" target="_blank">privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart thinks about the whole thing</a>. This quote in particular...
<blockquote>I’m very concerned about these changes. More than half a million developers will have access to this data. The information will be stored indefinitely and it opens the possibility that a lot of people can be blackmailed from all corners of the world.</blockquote>
And later down the article, this.
<blockquote>Although the commission's powers are limp by global standards, Ms. Stoddart said she decided after some “sleepless nights” that her office “could not duck” the privacy issues posed by Facebook.</blockquote>
That's the way we think about Internet giants these days. We feel they're too big to argue with. We accept what they do and never question it.

I had a lot of misgivings about what I've read of the FB privacy changes over the last few days. Yesterday I decided to sleep on it and see how I felt about the whole thing today. It wasn't a sleepless night. What's going on here is just plain wrong. We're handing over unknown amounts of private information to unknown people who are looking to make a buck out of it. Worse, those of us who encourage people to join Facebook and fan pages <b>are leading others to offer up their privacy too.</b>&nbsp;

I took the FB and FB fan page link off this site a while back because I was getting worried about this issue.&nbsp;But that's not enough. Later today I am closing my presence on Facebook. And, if the procedure outlined here actually works, I will endeavour to make sure everything to do with me is deleted from their servers. It says something about FB that you have to go through some awkward manoeuvres just to manage this. You can find the detail <a href="http://en-gb.facebook.com/help/?search=i%20want%20to%20permanently%20delete%20my%20account" target="_blank">here</a>, and it's for the UK only -- whether it will work elsewhere I don't know.

To the people I've corresponded with on FB over the years all I can say is thanks... it's been fun mostly. But I don't feel happy acquiescing to this kind of behaviour by a multi-billion dollar corporation. Nor, more importantly, do I feel comfortable encouraging others to offer up their identities to this organisation.

You can still find me on twitter of course at <a href="http://twitter.com/david_hewson" target="_blank">david_hewson</a> and through this web site. I'm not disappearing. I'm just going to be more picky and more inquiring about the social medias sites I use in future.