Facebook Ditches Burger King 'Whopper Sacrifice' Campaign

January 16, 2009 6:51 a.m. EST

Miami, FL (AHN) - The social networking site Facebook has dropped an application from Burger King that would give a free Whopper hamburger to anyone who ditched 10 people from his or her "friends" list.

Facebook said the application violated its privacy policies. Part of the Burger King promotion required people who were dropped to be notified. Facebook normally doesn't notify people when they are removed from a friends list.

Burger King said it agreed to pull the plug on the "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign, rather than make changes asked for by Facebook.

The fast food giant said in a statement: "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."

More than 233,000 people found themselves dropped for a hamburger since the campaign began a few weeks ago.