It was an interesting ride while it lasted, but today I'm deactivating my Facebook account. I know it is a trendy thing to do, but I've got some good reasons.

1. OpenGraph - There is a slide from the Facebook developers conference, f8,  which sums why the name OpenGraph is crap, it has all websites and identity go to and from Facebook.  This kind of setup is not open, federated or decentralized, and makes the Vint Cerf and Pete Prodoehl  in me very suspicious. It is as though it is now going to be expected to use the social web you need to have a facebook account

2. You must have a Facebook account - What? In order to play with other people and interact and annotate I can only use one social network? This is again not open, and worse, captive by nature.  I don't see a login with twitter button when I want to sign into Facebook, and twitter is where I feel my real digital identity lives and breathes every day. Facebook's history with using this social meta data, which they own and control, has not great either, see beacon.

3. Yet another non-open standard - Why is OpenGraph needed? Data describing data, we have RDF. Friend of a friend, we have FOAF and  XFN. Federated login, OAuth. This "new format" is not needed and intended to create a standard that Facebook controls. Ask anyone that writes Facebook applications, the API is always changing without notice and one of the worst to develop for. Also when times get tough over at Facebook, how much of your meta data are they going to be willing to sell with a simple Terms of Service modification?

4. Kevin, Google has more of your information than Facebook! - Yes they do, but there are two main differentiations between them, utility and portability. Google provides my life with enormous utility, free email, calendar, docs, IM, all with nice interconnections with my phone and the services themselves.  Not withstanding Google Buzz, which I just turned off from the start, Google has made it clear that these tools are at your control.  There focus on open API's, protocols, and portability give me the piece of mind that I can move my data whenever I want, I have the exact opposite feeling with Facebook.

5. Facebook is now a waste of time - Even before facebook, my micro messaging/status updates are on twitter, open richly geo/text/fav/person tagged photos are on flickr, and IM indexed and searchable through Gmail.  Facebook for me has not changed any of this over the years. I've gotten work offers through twitter and linkedin, never fb.  From the early application spammers, to people that invite me to every stupid fun run, I get more spam then ever before. And don't get anyone started on Farmville's sins of the father.  

6. Default Privacy - Without overstating it, Facebook tricked its users last year with the mandatory pop-up privacy changer. It defaulted all of your settings to "everyone" thereby opening your info to the web and more clicks on Facebook. They called the program a "success" with 1/3 of the people changing the settings, however this means 2/3 clicked "everyone" and opened up their profile to the world. This kind of move shows malicious use of your Social Graph purely for the good of Facebook Inc.

It is really all a combination of diminishing utility, real privacy concerns, and bad internet citizenship. I'll still be plugged into the internet, I just won't be able to like things. Until OpenLike takes off ;)

All I will really miss is 200 people wishing me a happy birthday. I'm still human.

Follow me on twitter @KeVroN

UPDATE: Check out this amazing infographic about default privacy settings

UPDATE2: My post has been made into a cartoon! Thanks for the great viz @bengillin