Due to a growing number of concerns over the past few months on how Facebook treats my personal data, and triggered by what I’ve seen of their actual business model, new privacy policy and how they react to digruntled users and people who criticise them, I have decided to quit Facebook. I’ve been using it for a while, but I just cannot conclude other than that the cons heavily outweigh the pros. So I’m gone, even though the account deletion process is notoriously difficult to discourage people exercising their right to quit a service.

If you really want to know more (and you should!), try these links and decide for yourself:

• Here’s a good summary of why you should consider quitting too @ Gizmodo.
• Here’s a timeline of FB’s privacy policy @ EFF.
• Here’s a great description of the deletion process (and how tricky it is) @ groovyPost.

In case you’re wondering: yes, I’m still on LinkedIn (my only active social network now), them I do still trust.

UPDATE: The EFF has an interesting post up on how to opt out of Facebook’s Instant Personalization (which you probably want to do if you do decide to stay on Facebook).

UPDATE 2: Ryan Singel over at Wired has written a very good article on Facebook and (the lack of) privacy: Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative .

UPDATE 3: Dan Yoder (the author of the post on Gizmodo linked above) has written a very insightful follow-up: More Reasons Why You Should Still Quit Facebook

UPDATE 4: Facebook is having an internal powwow on the storm of criticism their privacy policy has caused. Will this change anything? Nah, I really don’t think so. But do expect a slew of new marketing, and a whole cadre of management types declaring that what they do is actually a good thing and what you want. Yeah, right.