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Facebook Really Wants You To Come Back (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The social network is getting aggressive with people who don't log in often, working to keep up its engagement numbers, Bloomberg reports. Sample this for instance: It's been about a year since Rishi Gorantala deleted the Facebook app from his phone, and the company has only gotten more aggressive in its emails to win him back. The social network started out by alerting him every few days about friends that had posted photos or made comments -- each time inviting him to click a link and view the activity on Facebook. He rarely did. Then, about once a week in September, he started to get prompts from a Facebook security customer-service address. "It looks like you're having trouble logging into Facebook," the emails would say. "Just click the button below and we'll log you in. If you weren't trying to log in, let us know." He wasn't trying. But he doesn't think anybody else was, either. "The content of mail they send is essentially trying to trick you," said Gorantala, 35, who lives in Chile. "Like someone tried to access my account so I should go and log in."

13 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Oh no! Better safe than sorry! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dear Facebook,

    That wasn't me trying to log in. Better delete the account right now, lest you have some fake profiles again. Better safe than sorry, delete it NOW, NOW, NOW!

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Not the only company by TheInternet01 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've seen other companies try to use security scares to get you to log back in, like ubisoft.

    If your account isn't locked out then it's likely just pr scam to get you to remember their services and login again. They wonder why people are alert and ad overloaded and don't respond to things, even ones that matter, because all the shady scamming crap from 'trusted companies' is fake.

    Security alerts used to mean something, and people shouldn't ignore them, but they've started to since companies are abusing that content.

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  3. Alternatives are good enough by butchersong · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I never used facebook very much and got a similar email recently. Honestly, I prefer Minds. The community is small enough that I don't have to deal with the vitriol of random relatives in my feeds or 1k friend requests as soon as I create an account..

  4. What really sucks about FB by future+assassin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    is if you really want to find local underground/niche music events/raves or even some general music most of the promotion now happens on FB or unless you really hang around/are friends with the people in the industry. Pretty fucking silly if you ask me

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  5. Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die. by rl117 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was shocked that when I received one of these facebook emails, that clicking on the link didn't prompt me for a login password. It took me straight into the account with zero authentication. I hadn't logged in in several years, so there were no cookies or anything local. Would not be hard to trawl for these and take over a lot of accounts?

  6. Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die. by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This isn't new practice on Facebook's part. They pulled a similar pattern of mails on me when I quit using it back in 2007. I'm surprised no one else has made this comment. When I complained about this to tech industry contacts back then, I was treated like I was wearing a tinfoil hat, but now some user experiences the same thing and an article gets written for a major news outlet. If you apply the rule that fear sells news, I guess this means that people are finally starting to be afraid of what they are "sharing" on voluntary surveillance media. Whoops, I mean, social media. Sorry.

    --
    Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
  7. Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die. by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you still have one of these mails, paste the link into a browser in "private" or "incognito" mode to validate what you are saying. Seems unlikely.

    --
    Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
  8. Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook by Sperbels · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was fairly easy for me. I changed my real name to my initials. They had a real name only policy (not sure if they still do) so they banned my account for using a fake name. I haven't received an email from them since.

  9. Re:Unlikely by admin7087 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not very likely in this case. Advertisement companies like Facebook have no real product and are easy to replace once they're gone.

  10. Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook by PKFC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Confirmed. My name was changed to Jus D'Orange because I got bored. Years later they bust me for it. Require me to change my name before I can log in again. Bam: "Jus de Pomme". Week later banned and now need to upload a government issued ID to confirm my name.... oh hell no.

    Only problem is: I can't log in to be able to delete my account. I'm sure that password will get breached eventually (not sure if I can even change it in the current state), but the ID requirement will be there protecting my account.

    Terms of service say I can't create a new account to circumvent a ban so yeah

  11. Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a similar problem with MySpace. I want to delete all my stuff (and maybe try to delete my account if it's an option) but whenever I try to log in, it won't let me proceed unless I agree to new ToS. I want out but I can't say No without saying Yes first.

  12. Huge middle finger to you, Facebook by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'll carry on using Facebook for the only thing it is useful to me: to sign in easily into sites that require me to sign in before I can participate. I couldn't care less what kind of garbage populates my Facebook account afterwards. I do not log into explicitly anyway. That's what Facebook is good for: as a trash bin.

  13. Shadow profile: info from members and analytics by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Web users who have never signed up for Facebook, such as myself, still have a shadow profile that Facebook infers from two kinds of data source. One is information that Facebook members provide to Facebook about a non-member, such as contacts on their phones and tags in photos. The other is a click-stream, or the sequence of URLs of documents loaded in a non-member's browser that contain Facebook analytic devices, such as its like button or comments plug-in.