Facebook has cut off over 3.5 million users who had downloaded the slightly stalkerish Breakup Notifier application.

The application tells the user if the object of their affections changes their Facebook relationship status, and has proved wildly popular. It launched at the start of the week and when it was cut off the number of users had risen to over 3.6 million.

Breakup Notifier creator Dan Loewenherz told TechCrunch that the application had been taken offline on suspicion of being spam.

"To ensure positive user experiences on Platform, we run routine automated screens that take user feedback, machine learning and various algorithms into account and remove spammy applications," the company said in an email to him.

"For example, if an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls and receiving a large number of user reports, it may be removed by our automated systems to protect the user experience and the Platform ecosystem."

Facebook has since said that it was looking into the application.

Sleuth suspects that the speed of uptake of the application fired off some threat reports at Facebook's security centre. Who would have thought there were that many people pining for their soulmates to be free?

24 Feb 2011