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Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost
- raganwald 14y ago“Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.”—Mark Zuckerberg
- jondoh 14y agoAlso, "break things".
- domador 14y agoThat doesn't speak too well of his design ability.
- raganwald 14y agoLet me see now. They have pushed their email address out into people’s address books and taken control of their private communications. Where is the poor (business) design?
- jpeterson 14y agoWhere is the poor (business) design? You'll see this when people start recognizing Facebook as the crap it really is, and stop using it.
- popee 14y agoEventually and maybe even sooner then most think, fb will become jet another dinosaur. It's just a matter of time. Fly dinosaur, fly :-)
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI know increasing numbers of people who are either walking away from it completely or largely disengaging, many of whom are people who'd be seen in the sort of groups usually marked out as trend setters, those whose behaviour tends to be copied by others down the line. I don't think it's going to disappear, but it does feel as though it's reaching something of a peak.
- raganwald 14y agoPossibly, but just for the sake of an interesting discussion, what is there about this particular blatant “It screws users over but it's good for Facebook” move that is different than all the other moves they’ve pulled?
- jpeterson 14y agoI think the difference here is that everything they've done before now has been more or less bounded by my own actions. If they screw my privacy, it's my own damned fault for posting sensitive stuff to their site. Hell, even if they track me around the web, I should've been more careful about blocking their cookies. But this is another ballgame. What they've done here is effectively hijack a completely unrelated and ubiquitous communication channel — without any action on my part, and without giving any indication of doing so! I don't even use Facebook, but since I created a Facebook account at some point in the past, they potentially have access to my inbound email traffic. That's just absurd and stupid.
- falling 14y agoI don't mean to defend them because this move is stupid, but to help you get this back in control: you can go you your about page and set the @facebook email to be hidden. I had done this in the past and they didn't touch it.
- high5ths 14y agoNo, that's the problem here: I had definitely hidden my @facebook email address (setting it to be visible to only me) when it was first created. After a number of people posted this story, I found that the email address was suddenly the only one showing. That's what is so nefarious about this. I had to go and reselect the options I had already chosen, and the only reason I noticed it was because of the press. Really slimy.
- jarek 14y agoI, as well, have set the @facebook.com address as hidden and set my normal address as visible and public. After the story broke I found my usual address "hidden from timeline" and the @facebook.com address visible.
- antidoh 14y agoI've been waiting for people to stop watching reality TV too. Still waiting.
- popee 14y agoLOL
- simonsarris 14y agoJust to be clear, that quote is from Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars), not really Zuckerberg
- domador 14y agoOh, I see. That speaks well of raganwald's wit and sarcasm.
- AznHisoka 14y agoThat speaks well of Palpatine's design then.
- horsehead 14y agoThey're two separate people?
- Silhouette 14y agoAlways two there are, no more, no less: a master and an apprentice.
- kmfrk 14y ago"Pray I don't alter it any further."
- raganwald 14y agoYou get free unlimited photo storage, free groups, events, messaging, status updates, and more. All your friends are on it and using it. You use it to keep in touch with people around the block and around the globe in real time. All we ask is that your private communications never again leave this application. Perhaps you think you’re being treated unfairly?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wetherbeei 14y agoThere's a difference between complaining about features within Facebook (timeline, etc) and changes Facebook tries to make outside of it's app. Changing your personal contact details is way outside.
- viraptor 14y agoNot sure how the facebook app integrates with the contact list, but isn't it only a projection of information that facebook servers publish? I.e. it's not "your personal contact details", but rather an entry that you accepted as being presented by facebook? It would be disturbing if they changed an existing entry that you created yourself, but if it's only an entry bound to an external (facebook) account, I'm not sure it's that bad. Which one is it then?
- kmfrk 14y agoFacebook will fix this embarrassing cock-up as if it had never happened - as always. I find your lack of faith disturbing.
- chernevik 14y ago
- at-fates-hands 14y agohis business card also said "I'm CEO, Bitch."
- ozataman 14y agoWell, this is my gripe with their "go fast and break things" mantra. It works as long as you have such a highly desirable product that your users just don't care if you're doing everything right. (Or maybe you're in a non-mission-critical business, or better yet, your customers are a bunch of kids!) I'm all for going fast and sincerely believe in "A sense of urgency", but Facebook is really lucky they're not serving more serious/demanding customers.
- gee_totes 14y agoFacebook is serving shareholders now. I'm hoping there are some serious repercussions internally at FB for this, because as a shareholder, I'm pissed they messed this up because the user base is upset and will continue to stop trusting Facebook. How's the stock supposed to get back to 38 now?
- chill1 14y agoit isn't.
- bira 14y agoDid you buy at 38?
- veyron 14y agoYour mistake was buying into FB. Honestly it will take a major acquisition to reach 38.
- Silhouette 14y agoHow's the stock supposed to get back to 38 now? Sorry to be cynical, but: it was never supposed to be at 38 in the first place. Facebook isn't worth anything close to its nominal market cap, it's just the latest very high profile pyramid scheme, or rather it would have been if they hadn't gone in so absurdly high with the IPO that even the heavyweight investors interested in risky tech stocks have mostly run away.
- josephagoss 14y agoIf you valued Apple like Facebook was at 38 Apple would be worth over 2 trillion dollars. Also keep in mind Apple is faster growing than Facebook in terms of actually making money. Yeah, sure there is some potential but perhaps not that much. Everyone does scream its got the same trajectory as Google, but the thing is they are already slowing down. If the stock hits 38 again and Facebook has not figured out a marvelous new way to make a lot more money, then its all just speculation and gambling.
- wikkiwa 14y agoIs it not illegal to intercept private communications without the parties' consent? Seems like this opens them up to a massive lawsuit...
- sp332 14y agoIt's not an intercept since obviously mail servers have to be able to receive email.
- jarofgreen 14y agoI fail to see what that technical detail matters. IANAL but the practical effect of this move is to intercept private communications they didn't see before without explicit permission from the user. I'd love to see a lawyer have a good go at this one.
- jfoutz 14y agoI think you'd have to show they accepted the email, then chose not to deliver it to the user. I think this is just incompetence. hopefully, it's coupled with a little incontinence.
- Alex3917 14y agoBut the thing is they're not supposed to get the email at all. The user goes into their contact book and selects the person they want to email, and suddenly Facebook is getting the email instead of it being sent to the person's actual email address.
- Zakharov 14y agoI think Facebook's position on this would be that the user goes into their contact book, selects the @facebook.com email address of the person they want to email, and then Facebook gets the email because it's on their service.
- emeraldd 14y agoHow does this not violate CFAA? This really sounds like a company that believes it is above the law.
- daeken 14y agoUh, how could it violate CFAA? It's their own systems, and their data (they own it all).
- flatline3 14y agoI have no clue whether this violates CFAA, but arguably they usurped address books and intercepted user's communication. This was obviously intentional, and the timing makes sense -- Apple is rolling out address book synchronization with Facebook. I hope this forces Apple to reconsider.
- emeraldd 14y agoMaybe it's a stretch . . . But it does sound like their system is presently causing changes to occur in external systems that were not authorized. Then again, having your address book linked to FB might be construed as authorization . . .
- shareme 14y agoNote, it might indicate that most of their Engineering staff use android devices as no one found the problem in time.
- pkulak 14y agoI've sent several emails to my Facebook email address just for shits and giggles. I've never gotten a single one to go through.
- Achshar 14y agoYou probably already know this but just to confirm, emails dont show up in messages. Instead they go to 'other' in messages, which no one checks anyways.
- molecule 14y agoThat's not consistent w/ my testing: - email from address associated w/ facebook account goes directly to facebook messages - email from address not associated w/ facebook account does not arrive, in neither messages nor 'other'
- tallpapab 14y agoThanks. I didn't know that and wondered where they went.
- Fargren 14y agoHow long have you waited? I heard of emails to Facebook taking as much of half an hour to arrive.
- pkulak 14y agoDays. Not in messages, other, or anywhere.
- graue 14y agoAs someone who quit facebook a while back, I can't help but feel that this kind of event vindicates me. Sometimes I'm tempted to re-create a minimal account on the service just for findability, but even that small step would have been enough for facebook to hijack my contact info in a friend's phone. There really is no way to have a facebook account at all, no matter how infrequently you use it, without getting screwed over.
- grourk 14y agoHow do you know when someone has deleted their Facebook account? They'll tell you.
- untog 14y agoToo true. It's getting tiring reading the comments of posts like this because I know it's going to be filled with people boasting about how they've already deleted their accounts/just did it. The HN crowd is a tiny, tiny minority in the pool of Facebook users, our actions are hardly representative of sea change.
- emilis_info 14y agoOr blog about it, or write an email. Because people want to keep in touch with their friends, "friends", followers, etc.. They need to notify them that they are using some other way to communicate.
- simonster 14y agoFacebook managed to remove any opportunity to email me from my Facebook page. I'd previously set my @facebook.com email as visible only to me, so that it wasn't published to the page. They didn't change that, but they did set all of my other email addresses as "hidden from timeline."
- angry-hacker 14y agoDoes anyone know if there is some kind of possibility to copy facebook contacts to my phone? I'm using Android+Facbook sync. Phone is rooted... I have at least 100 people who are facebook contacts and the ones I don't want to loose, but I'm not even able to copy paste their number not to mention copying them to phone/sim card... I know facebook doesn't want you to do it, but there has to be a way....
- djloche 14y agoThe way I copied facebook contact information was to sync to yahoo contacts, then export yahoo contacts, then import into google contacts. I'm not sure how this would work on/in the mobile ecosystem, but I'd have to imagine that getting on your desktop/laptop computer for a few minutes would be worth the effort of backing up the information.
- sushantsharma 14y agoI just uninstalled facebook from my android phone. The facebook contacts and their information is still being shown in my phone contacts list. I am not sure if it will be deleted in future (during some sync operation). If that happens, I may install it back again. In the latter scenario, merging the contacts however will be a pain.
- angry-hacker 14y agoI tried the same and contacts disappeared.
- sushantsharma 14y agoOkay, I tried to look some more. I discovered that there is a "Facebook" option in the accounts list that I can add on my phone (Motorola Droid Bionic). This facebook account was responsible for the facebook contacts in my address book. So, I went to the facebook website and revoked its permission to access my account. Its been more than a day now, and the facebook contacts are still there in my phone. May be you want to add the facebook account, and then revoke its permission from the facebook website. I think this will leave your facebook accounts in your phone. I will update this post if my contacts disappear in near future.
- jfreak53 14y agoWhy would anyone on God's green earth sync their Address book to facebook!?! It's a social network for crying out loud, not a work place! WT..!! This is what happen's when you mix work and pleasure ha ha, it's a stupid kid's playground to post stupid thing's and do nothing all day! I just can't get past it, why would anyone sync their address book to FB!? ha ha ha
- pwmanagerdied 14y agoCongratulations on your amazing first post. By waiting a year, you've really managed to get a feel for what's acceptable here.
- untog 14y agoWhy on earth do you think that everyone's address books are business-only?
- sp332 14y agoBecause most of my social contacts are on Facebook? And by keeping my address book synced, I don't have to keep track of every time everyone gets a new phone number or email address.
- arihant 14y agoThe part that really bothers me - The address books on iOS 6 changed without the user noticing.
- jarek 14y agoAn excellent reason not to give apps write access to your address book willy-nilly. You can't trust them not to screw up.
- nphase 14y agoI just deleted the Facebook app from my iPhone. I have no idea if it altered any of my contacts, but this certainly does scare me enough to warrant deletion.
- samstave 14y agoDelete facebook from your life. Lawyer up. Hit the gym. Words to live by.
- prodigal_erik 14y agoIf your HN contribution is nothing more than a catchy meme, you're gonna have a bad time. (So am I. I'm aware.)
- jrockway 14y agoMemes are fine, as long as they're amusing. The community has altered the posting guidelines. Pray we don't alter them any further.
- kmm 14y agoI wish I could do that. I wonder if Facebook paid HTC a lot of money to make the Facebook app un-uninstallable.
- LoneWolf 14y agoI have suggested this before on another thread and i'm not sure if you can do it on your phone but here it goes. Root it and use titanium backup to force uninstall, it's how I removed all the junk.
- californian 14y agoIf you go to Settings >> Accounts & Sync, can you at least uncheck "Sync Contacts" for Facebook?
- 14y ago
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- crazygringo 14y agoThe more important question is, what are Apple and Google doing allowing apps write access to a user's address book?? I can't believe anyone at Facebook was dumb enough to think this was a good idea. But at the same time, I can't believe some "rogue engineer" did this by accident. I'm curious to see what Facebook says about it.
- wtallis 14y agoIt sounds like this is iOS's built-in Facebook integration that was blindly trusting Facebook's data.
- rjsamson 14y agoFB integration isn't coming until the fall - it is currently only available in developer builds of iOS 6.
- wtallis 14y agoAre any of the iOS complaints coming from people who aren't running iOS 6 dev builds?
- cubicle67 14y agoiOS6 is still in Beta. be nice to see Apple haul Facebook through the hot coals (?) for this. anyone else think Apple and Facebook make interesting partners? They're both doing their best to get users into their own domains to the exclusion of all else
- sedev 14y agoThere's an important difference that I think you're eliding. People who use Apple devices and services, are Apple's customers; people who use Facebook services are Facebook's product. The former are not always treated ideally, but the money flows from them to Apple, so Apple is preoccupied with how to make their long-term experience better - e.g., to ensure that they'll continue to be disposed to give Apple money. The latter are digital sharecroppers, to use Atwood's phrase, and Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated that it doesn't give a shit about making their long-term experience better.
- vijayr 14y agoI really don't understand this - FB has repeatedly shown they don't give a shit about users' privacy etc. They also don't care about breaking stuff. This is not the first time it is happening, and won't be the last. So, Why are people putting their work email ids on their FB account???
- rdl 14y agoI wonder how high up within Facebook that decision originated and was ultimately approved.
- horsehead 14y agoGod damn facebook. This is why i hate their motherfuckin' asses
- Achshar 14y agoWhat? Is this Reddit now?
- horsehead 14y agoSo I hold an opinion and do have substantial intellectual abilities. Does that mean I must be erudite in every post? <-- rhetorical answer because the answer is an assumed "No."
- Achshar 14y ago> Does that mean I must be erudite in every post? No, you take your own decisions, you don't have to give knowledgeable answers. But it is always a good thing to word your answer while taking in respect the nature of forum you are posting it to.
- horsehead 14y agoLolz. Even a reasonable post gets downvoted. Now I'm just itching for downvotes. GIVE ME THEM.
- chris_wot 14y agoI think you are being downvoted because none of your posts are reasonable or add to the discussion on HN. For example, you asked if all your posts must be erudite, and you believe that the obvious answer to your question is "no". Basically, when you can't even answer your own rhetorical questions correctly, then it's pretty much all downhill from there.
- horsehead 14y agoThe problem with your response is that both reasonableness and 'adding to a discussion' are subjective concepts. Another comment of mine adds nothing to the discussion, IMO, but has on the order of 7 upvotes. That is in the thread of comments poking fun at Zuckerberg as a sort of sith lord. None of those are particularly thought-out arguments on FB's respect for its users; they are simply snarky insults of the Zuck. So, if snarky insults are reasonable and add to the discussion, then why is any one of these comments considered differently? (again, a rhetorical question. also, yes i put 'answer' instead of 'question' in the previous comment. my brain got ahead of my fingers. I'm sure you've never done that before, as you are clearly one of the world's top minds).
- codeka 14y agoI've been complaining for ages that Facebook's contact sync was broken in Ice Cream Sandwich. I only had the app installed so I could sync my friend's contacts details with Facebook anyway, and every update I'd check to see whether they'd fixed it. But it was still broken, even after dozens of updates. Now I'm glad it's broken!
- cjdavis 14y agoAgreed. I paid a buck for HaxSync to get sync working on ICS, looks like it wasn't able to overwrite the email addresses I had for people. I just disabled contact sync for HaxSync and Facebook (in case they actually decide to get it working with ICS)
- californian 14y agoJust in case you were being serious... Facebook sync wasn't broken in ICS. Google intentionally disabled the feature in Gingerbread. "Google says it is removing Facebook contacts because they are not stored locally on the phone like other contacts. This means that, unlike your Google contacts, the Facebook listings aren’t exportable so, if users decide to close their Facebook accounts, those contacts will disappear from the address book, something which violates Google’s notions of data portability." http://blog.laptopmag.com/google-removes-facebook-contacts-from-address-book-on-nexus-s-future-lead-devices http://blog.laptopmag.com/google-removes-facebook-contacts-f...
- stretchwithme 14y agoBundling things together gives the bundler more leverage. And opens you up to paying more when they make a mistake. An older German lady I know told me many times growing up that you should not $h|t where you eat. In other words, it pays to keep some things separate from other things. If you value someone's contact information, keep track of it separately. And have a backup.
- sugarmountain 14y agoCan any attorneys out there explain how altering computing devices to redirect and intercept email is not a criminal act when done without the knowledge or consent of the owner? If any of us pulled the same stunt, even if authorized to access the system for other reasons, would we not be subject to prosecution? Hopefully, the same will happen to FB. In addition to the Federal communications and cybercrime statutes, there is California Penal Code 502: (c) Except as provided in subdivision (h), any person who commits any of the following acts is guilty of a public offense: (1) Knowingly accesses and without permission alters, damages, deletes, destroys, or otherwise uses any data, computer, computer system, or computer network in order to either (A) devise or execute any scheme or artifice to defraud, deceive, or extort, or (B) wrongfully control or obtain money, property, or data. ... (4) Knowingly accesses and without permission adds, alters, damages, deletes, or destroys any data, computer software, or computer programs which reside or exist internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network. (5) Knowingly and without permission disrupts or causes the disruption of computer services or denies or causes the denial of computer services to an authorized user of a computer, computer system, or computer network. ... etc. It remains to be seen if there is a prosecutor with the backbone to go after this.
- fl3tch 14y agoWell, "Knowingly accesses and without permission... uses any data" would make the accessing and transmission of contacts (a la Path and many other apps) illegal. Except there's probably a clause somewhere that you agreed to without reading which lets them do that, and the same may be true here.
- sugarmountain 14y agoWhile it's probably true that the EULA permits FB to read the contact list, and update it in expected ways, there are many points covered in those statutes: interception and destruction of data, making the system unavailable for its intended use, etc. Can anyone find language permitting FB to destructively alter the contents in profoundly unusual ways so that email is redirected to FB servers for interception and delivery as FB deems appropriate? I'd really like to see an informed legal opinion on the possible criminality of their actions.
- jfoutz 14y agoIf you're not capable of actually pinning down the social graph, just cut links until you get to something tractable. Excellent plan.
- at-fates-hands 14y agoThe funny part is my friends thought I was crazy NOT to sync my Facebook contacts with my gmail contact list. This is a great example of why I continue to keep my information segregated across different networks. For all of the nonsense Facebook keeps pulling, I continue to have a healthy does of scepticism when allowing them access to ANY of my information - let alone letting these networks interact with each other.
- vibrunazo 14y agoAbout an year ago, when the story blew up about the Facebook app sneaking through your phone contacts and adding friends numbers' to your Facebook account. I instantly deleted the Facebook app from my Android, and told my friends Facebook was clearly not reliable to have an app privilege on your phone. I called it that they would eventually do even worse, if you let them have an app in your phone. The general consensus was that I was an alarmist doomsayer extremist exaggerating over nothing. Well, who is crazy now? :) And I repeat what I said before. If you don't delete your Facebook app. They'll keep pulling stunts like these over and over again. It's very clear from their history that they have extremely little care for customer interests.
- threejay 14y agouser =/= customer
- rangibaby 14y agoUser = product If x service is making money off their product (you, user) then you should really have at least some "rights". The key word being should.
- einhverfr 14y agoIf you aren't buying a product, you are the product. That's worth drilling into your head. Yes, that means that User = product from HN's perspective, but I am willing to bet it is a lot more of a complex connection than it is with facebook ;-)
- icebraining 14y agoI didn't buy my copy of Debian, yet they treat me better than many companies I pay. I pay for cable, yet I still get advertising. That "not paying means you're the product" is a nice sound bite, but it doesn't actually mean anything.
- 14y ago
- darkhorn 14y agoThat is why you need Distributed Social Networking Protocol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Social_Networking_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Social_Networking_P...
- JumpCrisscross 14y agoTo be clear, does this affect iOS 5 address books? What if those contacts are pulled from an Exchange account? I sync contacts but thought that only went as far as photographs and putting those silly links to profiles.
- MBCook 14y agoiOS 5 doesn't have FB integration, so it couldn't happen directly. I don't know if the FB app can write to your contacts (although it can read them, which caused that dust up earlier in the year). That's where the danger might be for iOS 5 users.
- raganwald 14y agoThe FB app can update your contact photos when your FB friends update their profile pics, I actually like that feature, it’s fun and relatively harmless.
- MBCook 14y agoI didn't know that (I don't log into FB much), that's actually kinda neat. That would be a great way to keep photos for everyone.
- JumpCrisscross 14y agoTo be clear, does this affect iOS 5 address books?
- SwellJoe 14y agoFacebook simply doesn't have an ethical central core. They've shown over and over that when user privacy or security conflict with facebook's goals, they'll choose facebook over the user. It's always relatively subtle; they strive to only do what they can get away with...but it's always pushing the line, and is never based on trying to do what's right, merely avoiding backlash. Facebook, the company, is kind of a sociopath. I wish it weren't this way. I have several friends within facebook whom I like and respect, and they produce a lot of great technology. But, I fear facebook having more power than they already have. It can only end badly for the user. Facebook really needs a "don't be evil" moment, but I suspect it's too late, and I suspect that Zuckerberg simply doesn't think that way.
- carsongross 14y agoThe "don't be evil" moment will be when people really start pulling the plug en masse. I mean the advertisers.
- SwellJoe 14y agoI don't advertise my company with facebook, for this very reason. I'm sure there are other people out there who feel this way. I spend about $1500 a month with Google, because they're trying not to be evil (even if they fail at the attempt sometimes). Not big money, by any means, but if a few thousand companies are opting to not advertise with facebook because they're kinda evil, it could start to be real money.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoThat's not a don't be evil moment, that's continuing to act in a self interested way, just circumstances changing what is in your best interest.
- orijing 14y agoCan you elaborate on why you think in this specific case user privacy or security conflict with Facebook's goals?
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- spinchange 14y agoLosing emails and user dissatisfaction is just a bug. Making their email addy the primary specifically to seed everyone's contacts with it via sync-enabled apps was the feature.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y agoBehaviour awfully similar to that of a virus, or malware.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- f0untain 14y agoCould this mess result in a class action lawsuit against Facebook ?
- robomartin 14y agoAmount raised on IPO: $16 Billion Value of Zuck's shares post-IPO: $19 Billion Pissing off 800 million users with a forced email change: PRICELESS There are some things money can't buy. For gut-wrenching invasion of privacy there's Facebook.
- curiousfiddler 14y agoI feel so sad that there is no competing product out there and thus FB has the balls to repeatedly treat its users insignificantly. It's even more sad FB is using it (the fact that all of my friends are on FB and hence I wouldn't switch) to take undue advantage in a way that I would not permit had they asked me.
- skybrian 14y agoAs I understand it, when an email address on Facebook gets synced to a phone, that's just a cache. Any updates to the email address on Facebook automatically update the cache. When friends update their email addresses, the cache gets overwritten and you don't have their old addresses anymore. But now, Facebook changed people's email addresses without their permission. The cache gets updated, and boom, the old address is gone. But what makes it more scary is that people don't actually remember that they originally got the address from Facebook and they don't understand the caching behavior. All they know is that the old address is gone. So they think that email addresses that they didn't get from Facebook are also at risk. The workaround is to manually copy email addresses from Facebook to some other system. Any email addresses you get from Facebook by automatically syncing aren't safe. It's a pity; after all, most of the point of the system is that you shouldn't have to manually update your address book when your friends change their contact info.
- tedunangst 14y agoThat's an excellent explanation. It also fits the mold of just about every other "service X broke into service Y and stole my info" story, wherein people forget lots of other plausible explanations.
- ams6110 14y agoAnd a good lesson as to why you should never make unannounced changes to your user's data. They will think you "broke" something, even if it never worked the way they thought it did.
- richardw 14y agoDon't many phone users sync their phone contacts to Outlook and similar? So wouldn't this lead to "work email" contacts being caned by Facebook? I just checked mine, but seems all my contacts only have phone numbers since I use Gmail and GApps web-only accounts.
- danmaz74 14y agoI wonder if this isn't a breach of the stricter privacy laws we have in Europe. Redirecting the email I send to my frieds to Facebook's servers without asking for my consent looks very suspicious to me.
- Heinleinian 14y agoAnyone else find it odd that the day the facebook email change scandal broke, they announced Sandberg was their first ever female on the board? Really looked like they had a distraction press release in the pipeline for exactly this scenario, and they popped the top as soon as there was backlash.
- yaix 14y agoThe depressing thing about this is that people will notice that email doesn't work and then use fb messages even more. I mean, how many people are still with one of the major banks, only a few years after their greedy behavior caused so much harm?
- superxor 14y agoOMFG, are they this desperate to fight off Gmail! People call G+ a desperate attempt, but this is ground-bottom. There's only word to describe this, disaster.
- antidoh 14y agoHere's my fear. I deleted my FBook account a couple years ago. And it seems to be at least inactive, but I assume there is still an entity representing "me" in some state at FBook, because that's how FBook rolls. As I understand this latest feature, if I am a contact on someone else's phone, and their FBook app notices that I am a FBook user, that person's entry for me get's slammed to now point to me@FBook. So when that person emails me, it no longer goes to me@me.com, it goes to me@FBook.com. Which is an address that may or may not exist, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that FBook doesn't respond with a no such address, it just consumes the data. And I'm suddenly unreachable.
- accountswu 14y agoThis is why I never upload my pictures or videos on facebook and I have my home town and current city are set to Valhalla and Atlantis. http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/15/facebook-lie-terms-of-service/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/15/facebook-lie-terms-of-servi... "Mr. Schnitt suggests that users are free to lie about their hometown or take down their profile picture to protect their privacy..." The clarification from Barry Schnitt (Facebook’s Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy) was even worse: "I think WSJ is paraphrasing. What I said is profile picture and current city are optional. You don’t have to include a profile picture or you can include a picture of your dog or anything you like. Similarly, you don’t have to indicate your current city or you can indicate that your current city is “Atlantis”, “Valhalla” or, again, anything you like. We hope people will use accurate information if they are comfortable doing so because that information helps them to be found by their friends, which is part of the point of joining the site."
- bogger 14y agoQuite apart from the ethical ins and outs of this, it's simply a buggy release. I played around with my new (and unwanted) email address and found the following: 1. Email sent to the new facebook address from the gmail account associated with my profile gets delivered to my facebook messages. 2. Email sent to the new facebook address from another gmail account I own is not delivered. It simply disappears. This is basic stuff. I guess they did like no testing before they released this f*up to their billion or so users.
- mkramlich 14y agoI hope someone chimes up again saying how Facebook has so many smart engineers on staff. This looks like either an intelligence failure, or an ethics failure, or a little of both.
- grannyg00se 14y agoAt first I was wondering what Facebook has to do with email. Then I read this: "alterations that had begun in their contacts and address books outside Facebook -- valid e-mail addresses were being changed for @Facebook without people's awareness" WTF?! This sounds like the facebook app has access to modify the contents of a phone's address book without direct user action. Is that what's happening here? I just checked all my contacts and everything seems fine (BB7.1)