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'Whopper Sacrifice' killed on Facebook

When a Facebook user dumped friends as part of the Whopper Sacrifice campaign, the "victims" received a notification of the defriending, which raised privacy issues at the website.

MIAMI (Jan. 15, 2009) Friendship endures. It looks like the Burger King “Whopper Sacrifice” has been sacrificed.

At the first of the year, Burger King released the “Whopper Sacrifice” application on the social-networking Facebook website, allowing Facebook users to dump 10 of their website “friends” and get a coupon for a free burger. The application, which received widespread publicity, was used by 82,000 people to delete more than 230,000 friendships on Facebook.

On Wednesday night, David Swain, a spokesman for Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif., said the website had placed restrictions on the use of the application. Some concerns about privacy had been raised, because when Facebook friends were deleted, they were notified that it was because of the “defriending.”

Swain issued a statement Thursday morning that said: “We encourage creativity from developers and companies using [the] Facebook platform, but we also must ensure that applications meet users’ expectations.

“After constructive conversations with Burger King and the developer of the application, they have decided to conclude their campaign rather than continue with the restrictions we placed on their application.”

A Burger King spokeswoman said: "While Facebook was a great sport, they did ask for changes that would have resulted in a different approach to our application, counter to what we developed. Ultimately, based on philosophical differences, we decided to conclude the campaign and chose to 'sacrifice' the application."

Whopper Sacrifice was created by Burger King’s ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Miami, which also crafted the Whopper Virgins and Flame burger-scented cologne ads.