Attention Developers: Facebook Delete Applications Without Warning

UPDATE Mr Kirkland interivew by IDG

So after an exciting start with our tracker application reaching 8000 users within 3 days after launch facebook have deleted it without warning.

Admittedly we recieved a number of ‘Facebook TOS reports’, but they were all from users that had misunderstood what the application did and were essentially false alarms. Moreover our application had been reviewed and accepted into the facebook directoty and we even had recieved direct confirmation that our idea was okay:

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your cooperation with our policies. To answer your question,
yes, anonymously tracking ‘hits’ would be fine (as long as the user cannot
tell who specifically has been visiting their profile).

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

So you can imagine just how pleased we were with the reply after I had questioned the reason for the disappearance of Tracker:

Hi Chris,

Upon further review of your application we found that it violates our Terms
of Service. You asked me if tracking the number of hits anonymously would
be within our Terms of Service. This would be, but it should only be
possible if the other user visiting the site has also installed the
application. I apologize if my answer to your initial inquiry was unclear.
Thank you for letting us know about this other application. We’ll be
reviewing its functionality as well.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

So we were given no opportunity to alter the application, no warnings that they would do this, and my attempts at discussing the erronous User TOS reports with facebook merely recieved generic replies.

Conclusion

If you are developing a facebook app, watch out it might suddenly dissappear!