Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.''"

21 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 Bill+Barth · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can't get rid of the address, but you can make it so that no one sees it. You can also display to whomever you like whatever address you like. The settings updates you have to make are pretty straightforward.

      --
      Yes...I am a rocket scientist.
    2. 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.

    3. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by pegasustonans · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      Just do it.

      I deleted mine over a year ago and haven't missed it for a second.

      --
      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
    4. 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.

    5. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nobody sees it but everybody knows that given an url https://www.facebook.com/you there is an address at you@facebook.com
      The help reads that mail received by that address goes into facebook's messages. That would be good for spammers. I tried sending a mail to myself, still waiting for it to arrive or bounce.

    6. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by drooling-dog · · Score: 5, Informative

      At this point I only have a fb id so that I can be invited to events by others.

      Some old-timers once told me of a time when you could have friends and get invited to things without needing the services of a corporation that makes its money by knowing and selling every detail of your life, but I can't imagine how it was ever done.

    7. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by citizenr · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      No you aren't you sheep, stop fantasizing. You are a slave.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    8. 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?
    9. Re:There is not even a way to remove it! by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's makes little difference for spammers because Facebooks approach to spam filtering is, to put it mildly, "nuke it from space". Mail sent to you that isn't from a friend goes into the "other" section and generates no notifications at all. The only way to even know you have received such a message is to make a habit of going into Messages and manually polling the "other" section to see if there are messages there.

      This is insane. The reason people fought so hard to build strong spam filters that let strangers could mail each other is that the internet is about connecting people, even people who may not already be friends. I am not the type to have histrionics over changes Facebook makes, in fact I don't remember the last time I got really annoyed about a change they made. Far more of my friends care about the forced transition to Timeline than this. But Facebook fucked up email totally, which is why I don't use my @facebook.com address. I'm sure the average Facebook user never corresponds outside their circle of friends, but I have projects and interests that often mean wanting to contact people who don't know me (and vice versa). So it actually matters to me that people can find my email address and use it. Silently changing my settings like this pisses me off, and the absolute bullshit their PR flaks spouted about it just rubs salt in the wound. "Making addresses more consistent" - since when is consistency of domain name a factor in anything? What possible benefit does that have for anyone except them? Ugh. Google+ gets this right, incidentally.

    10. 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.

  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.

  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. 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.
  5. And what-do-you-know, it's PUBLIC. by DaneM · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just checked my own Facebook info page and discovered that while my gmail address was still "Friends/not shown on timeline," my new Facebook address is "Friends/shown on timeline." Depending on exactly is meant by that last bit, it could explain why I'm suddenly getting about double the spam in my Gmail account that I was getting a month ago. (I get email notifications from Facebook sent to me Gmail account, as I suspect most people do.) Thank goodness for good spam filters...

    There's a good reason why I ratchet-down my email address' availability on web pages, and apparently Facebook isn't nearly so concerned (which, of course, comes as no great surprise). I'd be curious to know if someone whose normal address is set to "hidden" now has a non-hidden Facebook address.

    Also, the line, "We want people to use whatever's easier for them" has a somewhat different meaning when you're actively making it easier for those looking at a user's info page to see the @facebook address, rather than the one the user intentionally put there. Either the staff is oblivious, or they're being dishonest about their intentions. (Not sure, given their track record with privacy and such...)

  6. 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.

  7. 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.
    1. Re:Facebook is shocked at the response, REALLY? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      And the fact that Facebook was not prepared for the reaction it received is a bold-faced lie.

      At least it wasn't Comic Sans. That would be a real slap in the face!

  8. 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.

  9. It's easy to spoof by tmshort · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I didn't have any email addresses under my "About". Facebook didn't change my email addresses, it added the @facebook.com one to my About page. I was able to hide it, but you won't be able to get rid of it.

    You can easily spoof FB messages to people using an unsecured SMTP server. I tried sending myself a message from my wife (not knowing my wife's FB or email passwords), and it worked; it looked as though the message were from her! Since there's no email headers to evaluate, you can't tell where it really came from. There is a little icon indicating that it is "Unable to confirm X as the sender." But it still shows up with her FB profile picture and full name (which I didn't provide in the email).