Facebook breakup app attracts too many stalkers, gets shut down
ERIN ANDERSSEN
Globe and Mail Blog
Romance is hot on Facebook, but, it seems, only on certain terms.
Three days after it was launched, the social networking site has summarily disabled a popular application that allowed users to get instant news when an object of their affection changed their relationship status on Facebook. Though the app’s creator, Dan Loewenherz, said he originally created the Breakup Notifier as a joke, a lot of people loved the idea – 3.6 million in fact
The tagline of the app: “You like someone. They’re in a relationship. Be the first to know when they’re out of it.” “Brilliant but creepy,” one reviewer called it.
Facebook also made news by announcing it was adding an option for civil unions and domestic partnerships, to its standard relationship status, which has been limited to three choices: single, married and it’s complicated.
After news that the breakup app was disabled broke on Twitter, the creator released a statement from Facebook. For the tech-heavy explanation click here, but it essentially suggests that the application may have just been too successful – and generating too much user activity – for its own good.
Too many stalkers. We can see why Facebook would take issue with that.
Do you think the Breakup Notifier is useful? Or creepy?
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