Commentary

Uh-oh, Zuck ...

by David , February 13, 2008

2/13/08 7:35 p.m. EST - It's happening again.

Users of Facebook are joining a digital protest against the way Facebook Applications target their friends:

This coming from the Official Facebook Petition: To ban the inviting of friends on Applications:

We the members whom have joined this group hereby request that:
1. No application ask or require us to invite our facebook friends to anything for any reason.
2. The ability and privacy to block ALL application requests.

Per my calculations, the group is currently growing at a rate of five to seven people every five seconds.

The previous petition exceeded 700,000 people. At this moment, the applications group sits at almost 186,000.

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2 comments about "Uh-oh, Zuck ...".

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ED Shahzade, February 18, 2008 at 10:03 a.m.
Yesterday I got 2 invites for apps which I only considered because the sender is a respected friend.
But, after reluctantly adding an app and taking my time to fill it out,
getting; "to see your results you must invite 20 friends".
Huh?
Zuckerberg is letting these spamming little maggots turn people off to his site.
It's like the waitress who insults 1000 customers, and the restaurant owner cluelessly gives her a raise!
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Chris Taylor, February 18, 2008 at 11:01 a.m.

I'd like to add a 3rd bullet point to the petition - apps that invite your friends even though you said you want to skip inviting others. That has happened to me a couple times. I explicitly told the app to "skip" inviting others and I finished the installation and played the games. I was furious to suddenly see friends a little while later with the "so and so who you just challenged to play whatever game played the game, see how they did" or whatever it says. The damn apps invited my friends without my knowledge. So I'm done with any new apps. I feel like I'm spaming my friends now unknowingly.