Privacy, Shmivacy: Facebook Is Doomed

Aggressive new advertising tactics make Facebook look more evil by the day, but don’t worry, InformationWeek columnist Cory Doctorow writes, because it’s doomed anyway. Sure social networks are “pure crack” for some, but sooner or later everyone gets friended by someone they’d rather avoid, and eventually that awkwardness is too much to bear.

"For every long-lost chum who reaches out to me on Facebook, there's a guy who beat me up on a weekly basis through the whole seventh grade but now wants to be my buddy," Doctorow writes. Sooner or later, the boss and co-worker requests will overwhelm users, and Facebook will join SixDegrees, Friendster, et al. in irrelevance. (More Facebook stories.)