Facebook bans Breakup Notifier
The social networking site has stalled the popular application Breakup Notifier REUTERS/Thierry Roge

Facebook has decided to shut down the popular relationship tracker application Breakup Notifier, which allowed one to monitor the relationship status of chosen friends. The application sent users an email notification whenever one of their friends changed their relationship status, thus sending out signals to interested suitors whenever an object of affection was single.

Techcrunch reports that on Wednesday, Dan Loewenherz, creator of the application received the following message from Facebook, indicating why the application had been disabled on the site:

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. 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.

Loewenherz, meanwhile, has reportedly been pretty indignant about the whole thing, especially as he shared that none of his emails or calls to Facebook have been returned. Facebook also appears to have disabled his personal account.

The application's official Twitter account says, Hey everyone, Facebook e-mailed saying that they've disabled us... We are working for a fix, but ask @facebook to put us back online!

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokesperson has clarified that the company is looking deeper into the issue with Breakup Notifier.

The application had gained immense popularity in a short period of time, drawing in over 100,000 users within the first 24 hours of being launched and had gone on to amass over 3.6 million users when it was stalled by Facebook.