Monday, June 25, 2012

Facebook changes your email address

Facebook secretly changes your default email address to a .facebook.com address which you never asked for.
This is borderline criminal. Is there nothing this fluffing outfit can't get away with?

11 comments:

emptyspaces said...

In the words of James Taylor in "Funny People":

"F--- Facebook!"

They are truly amazing, and even more amazing is how everyone puts up with it. It's insane. And not worth it, people.

CalgaryMark said...

That's the sort of reason I have nothing to do with F*book.

Jim Jones said...

That's like complaining about the impure product your crack dealer keeps selling you. "Can you believe these guys? I know we're crackheads, but c'mon!"

Tommy said...

Color me stupid on this one, but please, help. I don't get it!

My email client (MS Outlook) is set up to receive MY email address, only. What is the point of Facebook doing this if their bogus address is never checked for mail?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I'm sure they count on a lot of people thinking "well that must be the way it's supposed to be", and start using the facebook email. (Perhaps only for that and perhaps only on the site. Many people check their mail on web sites.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

... I haven't even found a way to change it. I couldn't find the interface which the article referred to.

Bruce W. said...

I guess I am an old curmudgeon.

I don't see any value to the user in Facebook. I keep in contact with my family and friends by all the normal (non-Facebook) means. Why should I give Facebook information for them to sell? What do I get back? I am secure enough that I don't need/care about strangers who "like" me.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

yeah. I wonder if it's only teens and people in sitcoms who care a lot about how many facebooks "friends" they have?

(In The I.T. Crowd, the site was called "FriendFace".)

CalgaryMark said...

An additional thought about FB.

I have received invitations from people I know to join them on FB. I reply that I don't & won't do FB. Some have replied to me that they didn't know I had been invited . . . what has happened is that (inadvertently and by FB's default) they have allowed FB to invite all their contacts to join FB. I have found that I can tell FB NOT to send me email invitations - but FB has already got my e-mail address, c/o careless friends who don't protect their contact lists. Other sites, such as LinkedIn do the same thing.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, it's just another thing about the Social Net: the heavily viral nature of it.
Every new name is a boost to ad revenues, and they don't care how they get them, as long as it's barely legal.

Anonymous said...

Bruce is so desperate for people to think he's special.