Having just, with some unease*, bitten the bullet and signed up to facebook** I'm gobsmacked how many people it suggests as friends, most of whome I know but some I haven't corresponded with for years. How does it do it? I haven't offered it my address book but ISTR it invited me to do that. Is it that everyone else has done so and it's finding my email addy in other people's address books and offering links that way?
I've now deleted*** my 'real' email address which facebook seemed to have listed for me (how? I didn't give it to them) and am sticking with a " snipped-for-privacy@domain.x.y" type address, so theoretically it shouldn't be able to link people up with me through that, though if their address books contain my real name alongside my address it may still be able to guess.
I have a deep sense of unease that when They come to get Us we'll have done most of the detective work for them :-<
** as myself: I was already on there under a pseudonym
*** ok, I asked fb to delete it: but they could be keeping it but not telling me
having read quite a bit about facebook over the last year, I wouldn't touch them with the proverbial bargepole.
It's amazing the amount of personal info they can extract and use from their subscribers - read their T&Cs very carefully.
At one stage, their T&Cs stated that whatever you posted there became theirs and whilst you could archive your 'site' they wouldn't allow you to delete it (this was changed after a bit of a ding-dong in the 'States).
There has also been a recent 'privacy' issue whereby they made it rather complicated to adjust the security settings from 'open' to 'private' if you wished - again this has now been 'partially' rectified after a lot of complaints were made.
It would also appear that many employers search facebook for information on existing and prospective employees - all rather George Orwellian in my own opinion.
Yes, I'm aware of that and I've kept my personal information on there down to pretty much name rank and number ... and a link to my personal web site (on which there's also not too much intimate personal info).
I don't know why people worry about facebook. Google, eBay, and my bank already know far more about me than I do.
At least they're "careful". In Homebase the other day, I noticed that their ordering system was web-based, and IE had helpfully stored all previously entered details as auto-complete entries! So you got everyone's name, address, phone number etc all stored right there on the PC for anyone to call up, even if they didn't have access to the orders themselves.
"John Stumbles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...
I actually think that Face-ache and the other clones, are one of the most antisocial and dangerous offerings that have come out of internet technology in the last couple of years. I have three 'kids' all now grown up and left the nest, and they are all ardent Face-achers. Apart from the amount of time they waste on it, it causes a lot of trouble and ill-feeling among people who are otherwise friends. I think this stems from several issues with communicating in this way. First, it is very strange the way that some of the postings are carried out using the third person, like "Fred is not very happy today" or "Sally had a stinking rotten day at work today". This creates an immediate detachment from a 'real' communication between people. This is further exacerbated by the fact that many people now are semi-illiterate, and use wrong words, in wrong contexts, and often with wrong grammar. In a face to face conversation, they get away with this, because the person that they are talking to 'understands' the true intent because there are visual and implied cues from the facial expressions and audible intonation applied to the words. When these same words are typed, however, it becomes very easy to misinterpret the real intended meaning, which may well have been intended to be a 'throw away' comment, or a humourous or tongue-in-cheek one. This can then lead to heated exchanges - like mini flame wars - that often result in ended friendships, or awkward standoffs. I have seen it time and again when my daughters have been involved. When you ask them what is going on, and they read out what has been said in these exchanges, very often with the benefit of being detached from the situation, you can understand what the unfortunate person at the butt end of one of these exchanges was trying to say in their original post, before it got misunderstood, and out of hand.
I certainly won't be joining any of these sites anytime soon. To be honest, I fail to see the point of having a presence on them, except as a place to gossip. I can't understand what the attraction is of sharing personal information about what sort of a day you've had, and what you are doing with your life, to all and sundry. Accepted, you can set some sort of privacy that only makes you visible to selected people, but what's the point of that even ? You might as well write an email each night to a copy-list of people ...
I find Twitter is sometimes useful to keep an eye on an interesting story like gaming news or conference reports - but it does depend on someone sensible posting Tweets in the first place :)
Yes, if you're *going* to do it, it makes obvious sense to take reasonable precautions - but I *still* don't understand the motivation for doing it in the first place! Just what do you hope to achieve?
If you have added some people on there, then it looks for matches in there, so if you add person A and B and they both are friends with person C, then it will suggest person C to you, as you may all know each other.
Did you join face book all on your own, or did someone invite you to it, via an email to this address?
Sounds like you're just not narcissistic enough :-) I prescribe spending at least an hour a day looking at yourself in the mirror (a la our budgie).
Apropos FB. Now I feel depressed. When I created an account, it didn't have any suggestions to make about "friends". But that's probably because I didn't give it any true to live information to work with. A situation I have no intention or remedying.
Not only do people upload address books where your email address is present, I've half a mind there's some mechanism for it to actually peer into people's inboxes and scan the email headers for addresses.
If you want to be properly disconnected, start a Yahoo(etc) email account *just* for FB.
Later on it also starts suggesting "mutual friends" merely based on other people's friends lists which is daft. Particularly weird is when you're then signed up as someone's friend when you don't know them. Had this happen and, when someone pointed out we didn't know each other, they said "Well, it said we both knew X, Y & Z so I thought we must know each other."
As you said employers search facebook. I'm half toying with having some minimal information up there just so that I appear infront of potential employers with basic work related information. Similarily something on linkedin might be beneficial.
As for the other "I've just bought brocoli" stuff that is published on facebook etc, I see very little point.
I've used LinkedIn (which seems to be the timewaster of choice for professionals) and I've contributed a few bits to soem of the tech. questions. However I've never really found anything useful on there in terms of opportunities or job openings. It may be that the value is simply in having a profile, rather than strangers approaching you with job offers.
I think so. Even if they use the information ethically I think it hugely irresponsible for FB to be asking me for my FastMail login and password so they can vacuum my address book and use it for suggestions. Everyone should be being told wrt all online services that you don't give your login and password to any third party ever.
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