There’s an interesting battle brewing that may decide the fate of Facebook, the hugely popular social networking site. The country network of which I’m a member, South Africa, has tripled in size to 300 000 in just three months. I didn’t know there were that many internet connections over here.

However, there’s a dark cloud on the horizon. A very dark cloud. Microsoft is, according to the Wall Street Journal, in talks to buy a stake in the startup:

Microsoft in recent weeks approached Facebook with proposals to invest in the startup that could value the fast-growing site at $10 billion or higher, said people familiar with the matter. If those talks bear fruit, Microsoft could purchase a stake of up to 5% in the closely held startup, at a cost in the range of $300 million to $500 million, the people said. But Microsoft must first outgun Google, which has also expressed strong interest in a Facebook stake, according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft’s Passport signon technology (now rebranded as Live ID) has proved to be wide open to abuse, and not only by external miscreants. When Microsoft bought Hotmail almost ten years ago, the webmail pioneer turned into a sluggish performer and a hotbed of spam. As this page documents, Microsoft itself had for years been both negligent and willfully complicit in some of the abuse. On one occasion it changed, without notification, all users’ preferences to share information with third parties, for example. On another, it tried to claim copyright on everything sent via Hotmail. It certainly has not been particularly respectful of users’ privacy, and has burned its trust relationship with its more savvy customers.

I’m sure Microsoft has tightened up its privacy policies by now. It’s appointed a Chief Privacy Officer and its PR machine makes all the right defensive noises. However, a 3 500 word policy can hide many secrets. My reading of its copyright notice suggests that it still claims an exceptionally broad licence to copy, use and sublicence anything you post on any Microsoft service, even if it is intended only for a private community.

So I vowed never to use any Microsoft-owned online service — MSN Messenger, Windows Live, Hotmail — ever again. Publications that required Passport Network registration were simply dropped from my reading list.

Facebook is already over-cluttered with applications. Some are useful, some cool, some annoying, and some just downright offensive. I don’t mean in the prurient sense; I mean in the spam hotbed sense. I usually decline to install them, but I accepted a fun one involving beer just yesterday. Contrary to explicit instructions not to, it invited a random selection of friends, some of which I really didn’t want invited. This kind of spamware can kill Facebook.

But not as quickly as Microsoft can. If Google buys Facebook, I’ll live with it. The Googleplex 0wnz me already, and I’m not even a heavy user of its services. However, it has yet to show the kind of negligence or nefarious activity that will compromise my trust. For now, the convenience of its online tools outweigh the very real privacy risks. But if Microsoft buys Facebook, I’m outta there like a shot. The Hotmail fiasco alone was enough for me to never trust Microsoft with private information of any sort again. Through negligence, incompetence and deliberate action, Microsoft has abused the trust of users too often in the past. Here’s hoping Facebook doesn’t become the latest victim.

Update: In good Facebook tradition, I’ve created a group: If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we’re leaving.