if not, just jump on
facebook, that ought to take care of it. rg's rage for this latest trend-of-all-trends has reached critical mass for the following reasons:
1) unlike its sister networking tool
myspace, facebook doesn't have a random search function; the 'user' or curious net wanderer needs to register. so if, like rg, emails have popped into your inbox with 'joe blogs added you as a friend on facebook' and, being the curious person you are you decide to see what all this means, you need to provide (a) your name, and (b) your email address. there is no option for checking out joe blogs' profile, or the site in general, without providing this information.
this is the part where rg gets livid.
2) by virtue of logging on, your profile is created and you will find in a short period of time friends requesting confirmation from you so you can join their hub, or whatever the tech-savvy term is. rg views this as nothing more than glorified spamming. not being an uber tech whiz, rg has been troubled by the
how of all this:
how do people know that i'm suddenly a member? then it dawns on me...
(and rg is
completely open to anyone who is in fact an uber tech whiz to explain the process or set rg straight on any confusion apparent from this post)
3) in effect, it's a virus philosophy. how could it be anything else? a user's email address must be the key. if rg logs on, facebook checks other members and anyone with rg's email address in their contact list automatically 'invites' rg to be a friend in their network. how else could it work? this would explain how (real, human) friends of rg's registered with facebook have invited rg to be a contact, but didn't
actually or
consciously do the inviting; it occurred through some other mysterious, automatic means.
4)
privacy, or utter lack thereof. facebook certainly has an option to limit/expand who can view your user profile, but the bitch of this is you can only do it once you've registered. surely this means that the email address you register with has already been bouncing here, there and everywhere 'inviting' people in your contacts to be your 'friend' before you limit access to your profile. rg's head is about to explode.
5) deleting your account. not possible, from what rg can gather. facebook enables you to deactivate, but not delete entirely. rg wonders if this results in remaining a 'registered' user, but a 'sleeper', if you will. is rg's account information still considered accessible by facebook?
truth be told, rg does feel violated, cheated, conned and exposed. i have the right to surrender my anonymity if i choose; i absolutely object to this right being denied by something as insidious as farcebook.