Under normal circumstances when a friend is “deleted”, no announcement is made, but with the Burger Kind application, a wall posting is created to let the friend know that they have been “sacrificed for a free whopper”.
The latest advertising campaign from Burger King, took place in the form of a Facebook application that offered a free Whopper burger to any user who “ditched” (deleted) 10 of their Facebook “Friends”.
The Whopper sacrifice website allowed users to add the Facebook application and select 10 friends from their friends list which they wished to sacrifice to obtain a free burger voucher.
In less than a week the application spread like wild fire and 82,771 people deleted 233,906 friends before the owners of Facebook eventually shut it down, with claims the application “violated the terms of the site by notifying people when they were 'unfriended'.”
Petitions are already underway by angry Facebook users to get the application back and running.
Facebook have announced that "We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions, In the meantime, we are taking the necessary steps to assure the trust users have established on Facebook is maintained."
Facebook objected to the de-friending notification on the grounds that it would disrupt users' privacy expectations.
A Facebook spokesperson said: "We encourage creativity from website developers and brands using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications follow users' expectations of privacy.
"This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions."
However, Burger King decided to pull the campaign rather than continue the application with restrictions.
A Burger King spokesperson said: "While Facebook was a great sport, they did ask for changes that would have resulted in a different approach to our application, counter to what we developed.
"Ultimately, based on philosophical differences, we decided to conclude the campaign and chose to 'sacrifice' the application."
The Whopper Sacrifice website now reads: "Whopper Sacrifice has been sacrificed."
About the Author:
Adam Khan www.Argos-Sports.co.uk
