It used to be the default way of finding your friends, before they introduced the whole 'give us your email account info to login and get all your contacts' fea

It used to be the default way of finding your friends, before they introduced the whole 'give us your email account info to login and get all your contacts' feature. I use it all the time as well to check people from craigslist or other coldcalls. In fact, it's just about the only thing I still have an FB login for. With all the discussions about privacy in the last couple years I am a little surprised at how many common sense approaches people seem to overlook or at least not implement. i.e. always have an email address for business, one personal/social (maybe these are separate), etc. and use them accordingly. The rest is up to you as far as how much access you allow to your profile, how willing you are to give up your real name to the service, and similar problems. Seems to me people have much more to fear from big data than someone who already has your email address being able to see your name and public profile pic.