For those of you who know me, I'm not crazy over the privacy (or lack of) options on facebook. I have created an account, but I am still leery, and have not filled out much information about myself on their website other than my email and name.
Well, last night, I signed on, and discovered something new and slightly disturbing... In the top panel of the screen, facebook often times "recommends" people that you might wish to become friends with. In the past this didn't bother me because basically, it would just take "friends of a friend" and suggest them - for example... I am friends with my sister. She is friends with "mrs. x" - so facebook says to me: Do you know "Mrs. x"? Not really a big deal.
Last night, I was surprised to see who they recommended to me. Yes, I knew the guy. BUT we have NO connections via facebook at all. I started to wonder, how could facebook have made the connection that I know this guy - I'll call him "Mr. y" - I started thinking... do any of my current facebook friends know him? No. Then how? Then I realized... the ONLY way... was because I have emailed Mr. y a few times. SO.... Either facebook is reading my email contact list (which I have not given them permission to do)... or facebook has accessed my friends email contacts and then found that it matched my email that they had on file. Now that's kinda creepy for a second if you think about it. Lets say I add some random emails to my email contacts... like stevejobs@apple.com - obviously Steve may not want the world to know he has a facebook profile. But thanks to facebook now, I might be able to learn his facebook identity.
I don't know... I think facebook has crossed yet another line on this one.
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3 comments:
Hey V!
Good to hear from you.
Hope all is well, and you're headed outta that slump now :)
facebook has more complete guide for new privacy features. That's good.
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