Just recently an American man accused of robbery was exonerated after a Facebook status update posted at about the same time as the robbery became his alibi. But Nathalie Blanchard, a 29-year-old Canadian woman, witnessed a different side, a much darker side, of using Facebook. Her rather jaunty Facebook alter ego has cost her dearly.

This IBM employee has been on sick leave for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with major depression. As if her long-drawn battle with depression wasn't enough, her insurance company, Manulife, withdrew her monthly sick-leave benefits this fall, using her happy Facebook pics as a pretext. Pics of Blanchard partying and holidaying were enough to convince the insurance company that she was back to normal.

The fun she was having, or trying to have, was strictly therapeutic - just what the doctor ordered, says Blanchard. She is also miffed at Manulife's meddlesome ways: the insurance company accessed her photos despite the fact that she has chosen to limit her profile to only friends. "My client was diagnosed with a major depression. And there were pictures of her on Facebook, in a party or having a good time. It could be that she was just trying to escape," Blanchard's lawyer Tom Lavin told CBC News.

The insurance company admits using social networking sites to keep a tab on clients. But it claims that it does not terminate claims "solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

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