Facebook API Bug Deletes Contact Info On Phones

An anonymous reader writes "If you thought that Facebook's recent unannounced change of its users' email address tied with their account to Facebook ones was bad, you'll be livid if you check your mobile phone contacts and discover that the change has deleted the email addresses of many of your friends. According to Facebook, the glitch was due to a bug in its application-programming interface, and causes the last added email address to be pulled and added to the user's phone Contacts. The company says they are working hard at fixing the problem, but in the meantime, a lot of users have effectively lost some of the information stored on their devices."

Comments

Well deserved

[icebike]

Any fool who syncs their phone with Facebook deserves all the pain they are likely to get.
The sad part is they inflict some of this pain on innocent bystanders who they happen to have in their phone books.

Re:Well deserved

[AaronLawrence]

and nobody would have expected even Facebook to fail this hard

Huh? Facebook has pretty stated that their strategy is to try major, risky changes at high speed and retract them if necessary. A careful, backwards-compatible, regression tested release process is the opposite of what they do.

So: I would say anyone trusting facebook with their critical data is a fool.

Re:Well deserved

[HapSlappy_2222]

That's exactly what it's for. I run a small print shop, and fully half my business comes through word of mouth on the site's FB account.

Yea right a 'glitch'

[arcite]

Like most consumers are going to believe this. Of course, what right to they have to complain? FB is a free product and users willingly sign away every semblance of their privacy. Don't want to get burned? DON'T USE FB!

Re:Yea right a 'glitch'

[Schmorgluck]

No, I really think it's a glitch, because it's totally incoherent with their business model: Facebook deleting personal data? That would be new!

Dipshits

[cpu6502]

Facebook's programmers have made one mistake after another. I first noticed it when they started redirecting my tablet from the www. to the mobile site. Bastards. They shouldn't be forcing me to a site I don't want to use.

Then they changed my email to cpu6502@facebook.com. And now this story about the programmers erasing cellphone data "by mistake". Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?

Re:Dipshits

[chill]

Yet still you have a Facebook account. Why exactly should they set the bar higher if all their screw-ups do is get them more free publicity?

Every time FB fucks up, the online world whines like it is the end of life as we know it. All you're doing is confirming to FB that you're addicted and can't live without them.

Why again should they change? You're their bitch and they like it that way.

Re:Dipshits

[cpu6502]

Because I like facebook's free service, just as I like free TV or free online magazines or free Firefox or free Opera or free Lubuntu. I just wish facebook was as competent as the other guys.

If I was paying then yes I'd certainly cancel the account, just as I canceled Comsucks. I'm more tolerant of mistakes on free services (since technically I lose nothing) than I am of mistakes for paying services.

Re:Dipshits

[jimicus]

I can understand they might provide some new @facebook address for you, but can't you just ignore it entirely? Presumably your friends would email you at the address they always used to, unless you told them otherwise.

Did you even RTF Headline? His friends won't email him at the address they always used to, they'll email the @facebook address because Facebook has thoughtfully updated all their address books for them.

Bug?

[Parafilmus]

It seems a bit disingenuous to call this a "bug."

The API was operating as designed: when a friend lists a new email address, my address book is updated to reflect it. That's normal behavior.

The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission. The API is not to blame here.

Re:Bug?

[zlives]

+1

Re:Bug?

[John Hasler]

The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission.

Nonsense. You gave them persmission when you enabled "syncing". Only a fool would allow an advertising agency with which they have no contract to not only run unaudited software on a computer containing their only copy of important data but also permit that software write access to the data.

Re:Bug?

[bruno.fatia]

You do realize that same sentence could apply to Google with Android OS? Only that they do have full root control on your phone.

PS: I do use an Android phone with sync to Google servers.

The real issue is with permissions

[sabri]

While a lot of people (and trolls) will bash Facebook and its coders, the real issue here is the broken permissions system on Android and Iphone.

When you install an application such as Facebook, you are forced to grant more permissions than is good for you, opening up your phone for bugs like this. Those permission systems should be fixed (as well as the bug).

Re:The real issue is with permissions

[bbecker23]

Permissions Denied has always worked well for me in limiting unwanted permissions. Admittedly, a third-party app shouldn't be needed for this, but solutions are out there.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stericson.permissions&hl=en

Re:The real issue is with permissions

[Trepidity]

In this case I don't think that's the underlying problem: even if it were opt-in, a lot of users would opt in to syncing email addresses, because in the normal case that's what they want. If a friend leaves company A and goes to company B, updating the address in your phone is convenient. What's less convenient is Facebook changing their email address when the old one was still valid and the friend didn't actually remove it...

Re:The real issue is with permissions

[mlts]

On Android, I would recommend LBE Privacy Guard (requires root) to ensure FB keeps its sticky fingers out of the contacts.

On iOS, it requires jailbreaking, but there is a Cydia app called PMP or Protect My Privacy which will allow FB to have what it thinks is a contact list... when in reality, it is getting randomly generated garbage.

Either way, FB gets nothing that it shouldn't have if you know what you are doing.

Re:The real issue is with permissions

[Anubis IV]

On iOS, rather than jailbreaking, you can just wait until later this month when iOS 6 comes out, since it has built-in controls for granting/restricting each application's access to your contacts.

Wow, thanks

[Georules]

Thanks for the heads-up. I promptly uninstalled the facebook app from my phone. I have way too many email addresses in my contacts that I can't afford to lose. My contacts aren't just my contacts on my phone, I use those contacts for gmail. Facebook is going to have to find a really good reason for me to care to reinstall the app.

Thanks Google

[bazald]

For the first time, I appreciate your API changes which broke direct contact synchronization through the Facebook app.

Incompetents

[gweihir]

That is why you do not change data under your user's control, without a) giving them a warning and ask them to opt-in and b) making backups. Any halfway competent software engineer or system administrator knows that. Apparently, Facebook does not have such people and is still half-assing it. These people are really a disgrace.

Demand a refund.

[vlm]

I think they should demand a refund of their subscription fee.

Re:Hmmmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know there's some reason people continue to use Facebook. I just have a hard time imagining what it is.

10 users 'like' this post.

Re:the bizarre part of FB

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

It s not that Facebook is cool, it's that social networking is cool, and there is no other realistic alternative. If I (collective I, I personally don't use facebook) have something to share to a group, Facebook is the simplest and the widest audience.

Re:BUG??

[ackthpt]

Sorry, 'bug'? Isn't that a bit like saying a behavioural 'bug' caused Facebook to kick my grandmother in the shin? (Which I don't doubt they would do if there was money in it.)

I'm under the impression it was originally planned to replace all your contacts email addresses with the new and improved friendxyz@facebook.com email addresses .. so they can, you know, route all of your email and use it for harvesting yet more information from you.

Re:Facebook and wooden talking rings

[webXtasy]

"I can chat w/ my friends on FB"

Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.

"I can learn where the party this w/e is gonna be".

Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.

"It lets me find my highschool buds!"

Sure, but if FB wasn't considerably more effective at this (i.e., you find a much higher percentage of folks you went to school with), it's because you have only three friends slashdork. It's more like, find the high school chic I had a huge crush on. You know so I can stalk her like never before, because, since we were high school friends (and I'm not in jail or something), it must be cool to let me know where she is and post pictures of herself with her new puppy and her pajamas.

The truth is, I remain on FB because it's extremely popular with the teenagers (which I have three). I damn sure can't just let them use the thing without educating them about the risks and consequences (and checking / fixing privacy settings every fucking week).

I'd be a dick to tell them they can't use it because I don't trust them or FB. I'm the guy that fixes and explains everything. It's what they expect and deserve.

They will have way more of this to deal with in the future than you can imagine (please get a clue before having children (or don't)). It may be a major pain in my ass to make sure that their cellphones aren't geo-tagging photos, they aren't just accepting everyone as friends, they post appropriately, and all sorts of things. It's my job as a parent to NOT tell them "NO SEX! NO VIOLENCE! NO DRUGS!" It's my job to educates them and teach them in a way that enables them to be good and safe AND PROTECTED citizens when I am no longer doing these things WITH them (e.g., my son knows how to install and _for-the-most-part_ maintain his machine with both windows and *my preferred linux*).

Anyway, Fuck FB.

And Fuck you slashdork. Grow some balls and own the technology.

With apologies to Arthur C Clarke ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

... sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.