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Facebook Says Your Email Is @Facebook

Posted by timothy on from the hey-man-that's-not-cool dept.

beaverdownunder writes "Facebook has been silently changing users' default e-mail addresses to their @facebook.com address in a move that Facebook claims was 'to protect users' and to create 'consistency,' but has been blasted by many bloggers and news outlets as 'Facebook's Lame Attempt To Force Its E-Mail Service On You,' and even characterised the move as a Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack on users' private correspondence. From the article: 'Many articles characterized the change as a ham-fisted way for Facebook to push its email system, which it first announced in late 2010. At that time the company said its goal was to integrate conversations across multiple channels of communication — text messages, Facebook chat, email, etc. Facebook seemed surprised by the reaction. 'We basically defaulted to show your Facebook address as we rolled this out, just to keep it consistent for everyone,' said Meredith Chin, Facebook's manager of product communications. 'I'm seeing this whole meme around the idea that it's us pushing for people only to use facebook.com addresses,' Chin said. "That was not our intention. We want people to use whatever's easier for them.''"

34 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. There is not even a way to remove it! by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just went into my profile to try to remove / disable this POS and you are not even given the option to do so...

    I am so close to closing my Facebook account it is not even funny anymore.

    1. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by slyrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just went into my profile to try to remove / disable this POS and you are not even given the option to do so...

      I am so close to closing my Facebook account it is not even funny anymore.

      Join the rest of us that left several months ago because of the increasing number of times that fb thought their views on privacy/settings/defaults was better than yours. At this point I only have a fb id so that I can be invited to events by others. Hopefully some sort of good event system will show up in one of the other social network sites.

    2. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by ai4px · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely... I closed mine over a year ago when I got tired of going back into my privacy settings and ratcheting them back down. The final straw for me was the auto tagging in pictures. With facebook, you are not the customer, you are the product they market to their customers. This is why your privacy settings are undone all the time.

    3. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What use is an event system on another social network, when all the event-throwers are on facebook? It's a perfect network effect: People use facebook because people use facebook.

    4. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      With social networks, you are not the customer, you are the product they market to their customers.

      Don't make the mistake that your details are private. These companies make money selling your information to third parties; That's all they exist for.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    5. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Dishevel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I make people who say that they are my friends call me, text me, send me an email. Heck. Sometimes they even stop by to say hello.
      Anyone in my circle of friends that insists that I need a Facebook account to be their friend is not a friend.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    6. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by jdgeorge · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Consider the intent of Facebook's email service: To remove people's need or desire to use Google services (Gmail, in this case). The big picture goal is that Facebook effectively becomes the Internet for people, the way AOL used to be.

      For the spammer, the value of Facebook email is not clear, but Google's spam filtering isn't doing spammers any favors. It's possible that Facebook's spam filters will be as effective (or more? who knows) as Google's.

    7. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The settings updates you have to make are pretty straightforward.

      Provided you know that you have to make the updates to begin with, what with the lack of any announcement and all...

    8. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by RenderSeven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's possible that Facebook's spam filters will be as effective ... as Google's.

      Yes certainly! Facebook will block 100% of spam that hasnt paid a fee to Facebook. Hey, Zuck's gotta justify that 90 trillion dollar IPO somehow.

    9. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It was different back then, because all your friends lived in the same little town as you. Now, with people moving thousands of miles every time they change jobs (which happens every 2-3 years), it's not so easy. Before the internet, we tried to keep in contact with telephones, but that didn't work so well; how do you find someone you lost contact with? If you couldn't contact a mutual friend, or didn't know which city they lived in to look them up in the white pages (or they were unlisted), then you were out of luck. With the internet, a few things got easier, but finding people still wasn't too easy; email replaced telephone calls and snail-mail letters, but again if you didn't already know their email address you were out of luck. Facebook made reconnecting easy since it was basically like a giant internet-wide phone book.

      Unfortunately, they've gone from just being a way of allowing people to reconnect and interact, to being a bunch of control freaks that make Apple look like they're not control freaks.

    10. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The user interface got worse and worse, each time the users accepted the new shitty UI and accepted it but it's getting to the point it's virtually abuse now.

      To be fair, it's not just Facebook where the user interface is getting worse and worse, it's EVERYTHING computer-related. I can't think of a single place where the user interface is actually getting better; they're all becoming horrible and dumbed-down and ugly. Windows 8 Metro: ugly, dumbed-down. Gnome 3: dumbed-down. Unity: dumbed-down. Gmail: ugly.

      Worsening user interfaces seems to be the big trend these days. I guess everyone's run out of genuinely useful things to do with their time (like actually improve their products), so now they're focusing on UIs to make their shit look "new", and in the process fucking it all up.

    11. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by cpu6502 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ANOTHER annoying thing is facebook keeps redirecting my Tablet to their mobile site. If I type www.facebook.com then THAT'S where I want to go, not m.facebook.

      Facebook's actions are equivalent to when I tell a taxi driver "I want to see Baltimore," and he takes me to smalltown Annapolis instead. The taxi driver should Never take his customer someplace different than what was requested, and neither should a webpage programmer. (But given they are changing our emails from name@yahoo to name@facebook, I guess facebook doesn't care about netiquette.)

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    12. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by ImprovOmega · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's a hint: if you and your friend don't care enough about each other to be in contact in some way that doesn't require Facebook to facilitate it, then you don't really have a friendship. In the old days if you lost touch with someone you just let it go, nowadays you have people on your friends list that you haven't physically been in contact with for over a decade and yet they linger. It leads to a certain stagnation in relationships that used to be pruned by the requirement of actually putting effort into maintaining real and close friends.

      I think Facebook and similar sites have their place, but to be honest, I think we overuse and misuse them.

    13. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not on timeline and I just edited my settings to not show the @facebook email address.

      Point 1: I didn't sign up for a facebook email address. Did you?

      Point 2: Facebook didn't bother telling me that they had created one for me that I needed to worry about. Did they tell you?

      Point 3: THEY WON'T LET ME DELETE IT.

      Point 4: The don't tell you how to delete it. They list both your initial address and the ficticious @facebook one with a checkbox next to each, and a link for "remove" hanging out in space. I checked the box next to the facebook address and clicked remove. It kept the address but drew a line through it. I tried to save that change and was told that I had to select a default address. WTF? If there is only ONE address, that's the default, you morons.

      Point 5: Not showing it to your friends is not the same as deleting it, or it not existing. What it means is that they can spam that address, and other can spam that address. It's a simple number. How long before the 1 .. 99999999@ spambots start up?

  2. Bullpoop by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "That was not our intention. We want people to use whatever's easier for them.''

    Whatever's easier for them is to use the e-mail address that they set up as their default before Facebook screwed with their settings. Changing users' settings without their consent is a great way to lose users. I should know, I dumped my Hotmail account for that very reason.

    1. Re:Bullpoop by Serpents · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Forced? I've never had a FB account and never had problems staying in touch with the people I wanted to communicate with. You can always call/text/email/IM them. If you can't be bothered to do as much from time to time, either you're better off without "friends" like them or they're better off without a "friend" like you...

    2. Re:Bullpoop by mlts · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even more ominous, it gives FB a lot of control over things it should have no business with.

      Disclaimer: This is theory.

      1: FB could in theory allow others access to that account, and thus allow people who had the cash to have access to any FB-derived authentication.

      2: Someone compromising FB wouldn't just have that site, but a lot of others as well. Part of security is packing your own parachute. OpenID is good because it is distributed.

      3: Relying on FB which has -zero- SLAs is about as bright as relying on using a high school student's cast off iBook on his Internet connection as the company critical E-mail server.

      4: FB gains a lot of power. They boot someone, that person not just loses access to FB and the games on there, but Spotify and many other places. If push came to shove, people who FB chose to toss out could find themselves losing a lot of access to services.

  3. It's hard to hide not caring.... by Will+Steinhelm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny how people are always surprised by the reaction they get when they forget to consider others when making decisions

    1. Re:It's hard to hide not caring.... by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny how people are always surprised by the reaction they get when they forget to consider others when making decisions

      Funny how people are always surprised by the actions others take, when you give others the rights to make your decisions for you.

  4. Facebook lies about it's actions..., again by Jawnn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "...a move that Facebook claims was 'to protect users' and to create 'consistency,' ... Yeah, right. Same shit, different day. I guess the amazing part is that they expect their lies to be believed.

    1. Re:Facebook lies about it's actions..., again by localman57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I guess the amazing part is that they expect their lies to be believed.

      I don't think they expect you to believe it...Just tollerate it. Facebook basically assumes that if they piss you off in small enough increments, that only like 10% of people are actively considering quitting at any given time, they can be successful, because the 90% provide enough gravity to pull you back in. But there's a tipping point, and studies show that there really is a disproportionate amount of gravity around "cool kids", the most social people in your family, and other social people who act like "hubs". When these people move, they tend to pull others with them.

      The point of this is that FB is not a stock to have in your portfolio. Because they rely on being cool in order to continue to make money. But making more money than they currently make requires doing increasingly uncool things.

  5. Re:The New Evil Empire by pegasustonans · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How long before FB is hated and flamed as much as MS and Apple on /.?

    Probably not before it slips away into the obscure forgotten Internet shoe-box along with Myspace and Friendster.

    --
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
  6. How many people will quit by buk110 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And how many people threaten to quit are two entirely different things. Unfortunately many people won't even notice these changes let alone care

  7. Deleted by mfh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now that I've been off Facebook for a long time, whenever I see friends we actually have something to talk about, because I have no clue as to what's been going on with them. It's brilliant!

    Try it! :)

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
  8. Facebook is the new AOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    they are essentially reverting the internet back to what it was in the mid-90's.

    1. Re:Facebook is the new AOL by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Everything computer-related has been going backwards since the mid/late 2000s. That was the golden age of openness, apparently.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  9. bullshit-o-meter is in the red by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "That was not our intention. We want people to use whatever's easier for them.'' -- BULLSHIT! They want to control and read as many people's e-mails as possible so they can show them relevant ads and make money. More people, more money, the end. What exactly do they think such an unbelievable lie will accomplish? Ironic, considering Mark Z is all about openness.

  10. Facebook is shocked at the response, REALLY? by realsilly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The entire purpose around user settings is to allow users to display what they want and to see what they want. So that means DON'T FUCK WITH MY SETTINGS. That means with every update don't check boxes that I didn't have checked before, don't force me to accept a change that gives me no way to say "No Thank You"

    And the fact that Facebook was not prepared for the reaction it received is a bold-faced lie. If they didn't expect this reaction, it would not have be implemented so quietly. Facebook knew there would be controversy, again, thus the hush-hush.

    On the other hand, Facebook is free to use, so it is in Facebook's interest to change the email address extension. If you were paying for your Facebook account do you really think there would be as many people on the site? Nope. So sadly, you're getting what your pay for, no fees, no freedom no privacy.

    If you don't like the TOS, leave Facebook.

    --
    Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
  11. Re:Facebook logic by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Facebook should be aware by now that users don't like Facebook (the system) forcing some changes onto them, or changing their preferences to something "that is good for you". (See privacy settings, Timeline)

    I'd say experience has taught them the exact opposite.

    A forced changes causes a vocal minority to be vocal. A fraction of a percent of the user base might close their accounts, but more likely they just talk about how they're really close to doing it. The noise dies down, the vast majority of their active users accept the changes and move on (if they're even aware of them). Facebook wins. A couple months later, rinse and repeat.

  12. Re:Yay , bring on the spam by BetterThanCaesar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your Facebook email is based on your public username.

    What this also means is that if you have someone's "public username", you don't need to see their profile to learn their email address. You can get the public username from any search or friend list, concatenate "@facebook.com" to it and start spamming.

    --
    "Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
  13. My Facebook friends suck anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Facebook has put me face-to-face with the fact that my online "friends" all suck. Almost all of my network turns out to be people I knew in high school and haven't talked to in 20 years, half of them are religious or political nuts, and none of them are really my "friends". My real friends don't use Facebook.

    Facebook is a fad. It's going to be a very long-lived fad, which is fine. But it's hard to see them as anything other than a clearinghouse for data that isn't worth distributing any other way. I do not care about what happened to you today in MobWars.

  14. Bullshit by Bob9113 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    'I'm seeing this whole meme around the idea that it's us pushing for people only to use facebook.com addresses,' Chin said, 'That was not our intention.'

    Ahem;

    Bullshit.

    That is all.

    --
    Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
  15. I don't see what the big deal is by shadowrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Facebook can't change my email. They can't take over my DNS and reroute my mx records. All they can do is set up some address and collect junk on their servers.I don't even care what people looking at facebook think my email is. Honestly, i'd guess that 99.9% of the time if someone is using facebook to contact me, it's not going to be through email. As far as i'm concerned, this seems like a nice feature. keep facebook messaging routed to this honey pot they've set up on my behalf. Maybe they can set up a phone number for me too.

  16. Give up the "coolness" argument. by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because they rely on being cool in order to continue to make money.

    So sayeth the Slashdot demographic as they stand in the cold and stare hungrily at the "cool kids" through the window.
     
    But it's bullshit. Facebook stopped being about cool years ago, and it continues to pull huge traffic and hold onto enormous numbers of users. Why? Because it's not about being cool - it's about being useful, and they've pretty much mastered that.