Dear Facebook: Go Fuck Yourself!!

No, Facebook, I'm not sending you a copy of my government issued ID to correct a mistake that you made! I call it a mistake just to feel generous. If I were less generous, I'd say you were trying to extort further personal information from me.

And don't try to say I merely misunderstood you.

To explain why we have come to this parting, my browser was having issues for the last several days. It kept losing my cookies and passwords. With my irritation level already high, I went to your site and discovered I had to log in. None of that was your fault. Instead of immediately letting me in, you asked me for an alternate email address, just to "help out" with my security. That's how I understood it. So, I put that in.

Then this morning when I found an email saying that I had requested to change my email contact, and I needed to verify it or refuse it. Of course, I presumed I misunderstood you because I thought I was just putting in an alternate not changing my contact. Perhaps I read your request a little fast.

(Still, how much sense does it make to ask a user, out of the blue, if he wants to change his email contact? None. Meaning, it wasn't what you asked me to begin with.)

I was also in a hurry, and this seemed to be a simple thing to resolve. I simply refused it as per instructions. What you didn't tell me in your notice was that you would then suspend my account, "for my security."

Then I was even in more of a hurry, and it was the morning, I was drowsy, but this still seemed short and simple to correct. I followed the link and your instructions to get my account reactivated. Somehow, I got your character recognition wrong, prompting you to lock my account. This character rec seemed more difficult than most. I won't say it was designed to be, but the suspicion has crossed my mind.

So, later today, now that I'm well rested, I tried to correct this matter. To my waxing surprise, you now request a copy of my "government issued ID," and then joke that it won't help if I send it more than once. Meaning, I guess it was a problem? That people were so anxious at this point in the info-shakedown that they would give it to you multiple times? It must have been quite a joke around your office.

It'll make up for your not getting it from me. Not even once.

Here's the rational reason why: recently Nintendo had a major security breech. Nintendo is a game company. What possible business did they have gathering and keeping so much personal information just for gaming?

Three weeks before that, there was another major breech that exposed the personal information of customers of all kinds of different companies.

You offer all kinds of "help" in protecting personal information, such as asking me to set up an alternate email contact, suspending, then locking accounts on the least irregularity, and demanding major identification information to unlock them. However, the major threat to my identity and personal information is not some random phisher who tries to change my email. No, it's from companies who gather and store massive amounts of personal data on tens of millions of people, companies like Facebook.

What do I get from your site for the added risk? I'm still trying to figure out what you're offering that's worthwhile. I'm suspicious of your site and its entire concept anyway. The only reason I had an account, which I never put anything on, is because friends had them.

I won't have an account now and I won't miss one, and I'll tell everyone just what you did. I'll leave it up to them to conclude whether it was info-extortion or not.