• Fortune, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 10:48 AM

The early death of Facebook has been forecast, following widespread criticism and a backlash from its own customers over a new advertising system. If Facebook's not careful, a rival is bound to come along and finish it off. It's a first in the annals of fast-rising tech companies that fail.

The funny thing is: the site is attracting more users than ever before and has all but solidified itself as the Web media darling of 2007. However, the majority of its 60 million-plus users are no doubt unaware of the privacy invasion nightmare that is the Beacon advertising system.

Facebook may have changed the peer recommendation system to opt-in, but Beacon still tracks people's Web surfing habits -- even when they're not on Facebook. And if user backlash doesn't undo Zuckerberg's social empire, then whatever's next certainly will. Delphi's errors begat Prodigy and its errors begat AOL, which was crushed by the Web. Facebook's notoriously bad PR will only accelerate its inevitable downfall.

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