For personal reasons, I’ve decided to leave Facebook.

Not only am I leaving Facebook, I’m also disassociating Cantabile by:

  • Shutting down the Cantabile Facebook page
  • Stopping all future advertising on Facebook
  • Removing all Facebook integrations — including the Facebook login integration on the Cantabile community forum
  • Refusing to use any Facebook analytics, Like buttons and other tracking scripts.

The reasons for this are mostly because I consider the behaviour of Facebook and its management in recent times to be highly ethically questionable. Facebook’s privacy scandals and general disrespect for their user’s data is not something I want to be associated with, nor encouraging. So, for me, it’s time to leave.

Please note that I don’t hold bad feelings towards anyone who continues to use Facebook. This is a personal decision. Obviously Facebook provides a useful service for many and not everyone can just up and leave. I was never a big Facebook user so for me it was a pretty easy decision.

How will Cantabile Users be Affected?

For the most part this won’t affect regular Cantabile users but there are a few things to be aware of:

  1. If you use Facebook as your login method for the Cantabile Community forum pages, you’ll need to reset your password in order to continue to use the forum. I’ve posted instructions on how to do this here.
  2. I couldn’t bring myself to just delete reviews that people have gone out of their way to write so I’ve archived all those reviews to the Cantabile testimonials page and maintained links back to the profiles of the review authors. (These are just regular non-tracking html links, not embedded scripts or anything else nasty)
  3. I’ll no longer be available to give support via Facebook. If you need help, there are other ways to reach me.
  4. I’m still thinking about other ways to provide updates similar to what I used to post on Facebook. I’m not exactly sure what form that will take yet, but stay tuned.

Time Frame

F̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶a̶n̶t̶a̶b̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶F̶a̶c̶e̶b̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶p̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶f̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶v̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶.̶

Cantabile is now Facebook free business.