Facebook demands social suicides cease and desist

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

... and I thought one online social suicide machine was enough, but I guess not: there's another site called Seppukoo and it's just been C&D'd by Facebook's crack team of lawyers.

Facebook seems to be taking these 'virtual suicide' services rather seriously, and in a classic case of legalese-owns-you, Seppukoo is being smacked down for everything other than assisting suicide.

Soliciting users' Facebook login details, collecting content and information in an automated manner, using Facebook's intellectual property -- you'd think that Seppukoo is guilty of some heinous war crimes rather than merely helping people shuffle off the social mortal coil.

This whole situation -- instigated by Facebook's new privacy settings -- is obviously no laughing matter. Seppukoo and the Web Suicide Machine are inflicting direct damage to their primary revenue stream. The problem for Facebook, and thus for its users like you and me, is that they can't really stop us from unfriending people.

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But this cease and desist illustrates the measures they are willing to take, the might and muscles it is all too keen flex, to keep their cash cup full to overflowing. It petrifies me to think of how big Facebook is getting, and how easily we could one day wake up to a police state.

Facebook demands social suicides cease and desist originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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