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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."
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
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
cat
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke