Facebook has blocked a site which allows users to delete their social network profiles.

The "Web 2.0 Suicide Machine" deletes profiles, friends and other information on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn for users who provide their account information. The number one social network also said it had sent a "cease-and-desist" letter to another website, Seppukoo.com, which also helps you kill off your virtual identity.

Facebook said the suicide site was in violation of Facebook rules because it collects login credentials. Facebook provides the ability for people who no longer want to use the site to either deactivate their account or delete it completely. The site is run by an outfit called Seppukoo.com it users to "impress your friends" and "disconnect yourself" by committing online suicide in the manner of Japanese samurai.

Quite how Facebook has the right to tell other sites to shut down we don't know. The site claims that it is under attack by Facebook's legal team.

"It has blocked/deleted all seppukoo.com information into the whole facebook network,has now threatened legal action against us in order to stop the suicide pandemic. Curiously, Facebook lawyers appeal to the user right to privacy to annihilate our facebook unsubscribe service," the site said.

"The Seppukoo.com staff rejects every false pretence about phishing or malitious use of personal datas and invites Facebook's developers to meet us and see in first person what kind of information we save and how we care of them," the side said.