Facebook Goes Full Backdoor Creeper AGAIN
The thief in the night just stole your email addy...
June 25, 2012 - 2:00 pm
Just when you think it’s safe to log on to the most overrated social media platform in history…
Facebook Just Changed Your Email Without Asking—Here’s How to Fix It
Hey, here’s something really stupid and annoying: Facebook abruptly switched everyone’s default email address to the @facebook.com account you’ve never used. Here’s how to switch back Facebook’s obnoxious overreach right now. So people can actually, you know, contact you.
Of course, Facebook’s standard operating procedure is to constantly make changes that either compromise security or provide users with something they never wanted. It’s most stunning achievement is that every “improvement” seems to make the site worse yet people keep flocking to it.
I am a social media marketing consultant. I continually remind people:
1. To Facebook, the companies buying ads are the customers.
2. To Facebook, us users are not the customers. We are the ‘market’
3. Facebook’s job is to bring the ‘market’ to its customers.
I think it’s closer to:
1) To Facebook, the users’ data is a revenue source
2) Which they sell to advertisers
3) Who then target the users based on their supplied and no longer private data.
The only asset Facebook has is the private data supplied by the users which generates an inherent conflict of interest. Facebook can’t keep the data private and stay in business since it’s the only thing they have to sell, but they also can’t sell the information without taking steps to ensure that it’s valid data and GM pulling its ads may indicate that much of the data is bogus. Thus any changes to their “privacy policy” must be geared toward removing privacy and anonymity. For Facebook to succeed the advertisers must know exactly who the Facebook users are and everything knowable about them. In other words, they’re morphing into the Stasi.
As I was told, “If the service is free, you are the product.”
Facebook is selling your personal information for fun and profit. If that’s what you choose to do, fine. Personally, I don’t use Facebook or any of the other social media services. I like to maintain my illusion (delusion?) of privacy. It isn’t real, it’s a pitiful thing, but my own.
Tried to change. I changed it in one place. But at the top it still had the facebook address. I tried to change it to my personal and work email – it said the address was “unavailable”.
What’s a “Facebook”?
Yep. I noticed that too. Also, when you go to the information page for multiple people in a row, about 20. It would then not show any contact information at all until the next time you logged in. Good for causing grief to those who troll for friend links then spam the emails they get. Bad for those of us who are legitimately trying to get emails to contact family, etc.
Reason number 974 why I don’t have a Facebook account.
I like having the email address I used to sign up for facebook gone from public view. I have multiple addresses, and choose which I give to whom. If someone finds me through facebook–part of the purpose of having a page is to have a public presence to be found–then a facebook-specific address is good enough for them. It’s maintaining a degree of privacy.
If someone sends an email to your “facebook” address, it goes into your private mail messages. I just tested it. Maybe not so bad if I don’t want my email address public…
(all the formats of the original email are gone)
This why I hate Facebook. I also use a Facebook ad block extension with Chrome.