The beginning of the end for Facebook?

Concerns over privacy issues have engulfued Facebook in recent weeks and the widespread media coverage has seen searches for the site in May fall for the first time in its history.

The past week has also seen a dramatic surge in people searching for 'delete facebook' (courtesy of Google Insights for Search). Unlike MySpace and, even email sites such as Hotmail and Gmail, for whom delete searches have remained relatively stable once they first start trending, Facebook has seen a sharp increase in searches for 'delete facebook' since the end of 2008.


Confirming this is a global problem, searches for 'effacer facebook', 'löschen facebook' and 'cancellare facebook' have all followed a very similar pattern (although the latter actually peaked in February) on Google Trends.

Meanwhile, underlining its rising popularity, 'delete twitter' is barely registering in comparison (although it did begin trending in the US in April 2009 and, like MySpace, has remained stable - albeit at much lower volumes since).