To whom it may concern:

After reevaluating its value as a service, I am closing my account on Facebook.com. This is primarily due to the numerous privacy concerns that have recently come to light.

Facebook currently strikes me as the Wal-Mart of social networking sites. It’s become the de facto site of its kind, and it knows it. And now it’s starting to take advantage of said status. And it’s difficult for its users simply to join another site because social sites, by definition, only work if they’re used by everyone in a given social circle. I’ve come to the conclusion that my best course of action is to remove myself from the site, and hope that I start a trend by doing so.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ve sworn off social networking sites entirely. Perhaps sometime soon, another bushy-tailed entrepreneur will devise a new such website, preferably a back-to-basics one without any aggressively stupid video games. Yes, you can claim that Facebook has become the international standard and will remain so for the foreseeable future, but I’m sure the same was once often said about MySpace. So when the day comes when a new site emerges, one where user privacy is a priority, you can bet I’ll be eager to make some room for myself on that site. For now, if you’d like to chat, we can always do things the old-fashioned way (relatively speaking) and you can send me an e-mail.

Yours,
Pete

(Edit: Perhaps that day has arrived. See here.)