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."

Comments

Creepy Zuck wants all your data

[Anonymous Coward]

Say no to the Silicon Valley mafia.

Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[Rick Schumann]

Maybe we get lucky and this is foreshadowing of the beginning of the end for Facebook? :-)

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[rl117]

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?

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't anyone remember the first few years of facebook?

Their modus operandi was to have new users log in and provide login/password for various email or instant messenger accounts. They would then grab as many contacts as possible and spam every contact with "join facebook now!" spam.

This went on for years, until about 2008 or so with the CAN-SPAM act. If you didn't create a facebook account the spam would continue endlessly with no option to make it stop.

If anything facebook is merely showing their true colors once more. Look into how the site was originally set up by creating fake accounts from public profile data of female faculty members. ...but this time you've given facebook access to your smartphone contacts, phone number and heaps of other data.

CAPTCHA: circus

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

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.

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

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.

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[omnichad]

They use what's pretty much a permacookie for login. Not a session-based cookie. My latest-expiring non-session cookie on Facebook (according to Edit This Cookie extension in Chrome) is April of 2019. And remember that this cookie can be reactivated or renewed just by visiting a web site with a FB like button or conversion tracking code. You don't have to be on facebook.com for it to renew.

Re:Die, Facebook, die, die, die.

[Darinbob]

Not being on Facebook is in itself evidence that you may be a space alien or a conspiracy theorist.

It took me 2 years to get off Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, 2 years to get off FB and finally stop receiving their junk emails. Get a life by getting off FB.

Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook

[Sperbels]

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.

Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook

[PKFC]

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

Re:It took me 2 years to get off Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Delete your account

[rl117]

I got one of these last year. It was a good reminder to log in and completely delete my account for good, after not using it for several years. I did the same for Google+ just last week. I came to the realisation that while superficially convenient, they weren't adding much value to my life and were in many respects a net negative. Facebook in particular had become a cesspool of irrelevant time-wasting nonsense. Finally deleting them all felt quite liberating. Like I'm no longer being spied on by super creepy people, though I'm sure they'll still try their best to track me.

Oh no! Better safe than sorry!

[Opportunist]

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!

Not the only company

[TheInternet01]

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.

Alternatives are good enough

[butchersong]

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..

Facebook Becomes The Jealous Girlfriend

[Anonymous Coward]

Stopped going on Facebook after being out of the country for a couple weeks without internet access. Facebook turns into the crazy jealous girlfriend, sending countless emails to you.

It's been a while since you've been here. Come back....
Why haven't you checked your feed lately?
Your friend did this thing. You should really look at it!
Something happened. You should really come see us and find out what.
Why aren't you checking these things!? You're missing out!
WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU IGNORING US!!?!?!?

What really sucks about FB

[future assassin]

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

There's more to it than that.

[waspleg]

This is an NSA/CIA/FBI/ETC wet dream for spying (on Americans and otherwise). I'm sure Facebook has deep in roads with the gov't.

I remember the old Onion article calling Zuckerberg CIA agent of the year many years ago. It's supposed to be satire but ...

Re:There's more to it than that.

[DontBeAMoran]

https://www.theonion.com/cias-...

Re:Unlikely

[jwhyche]

How about 'kiss my ass?"

Re:Unlikely

[DontBeAMoran]

Just because someone thinks Trump is a fraud or a joke doesn't mean he approves of Clinton.

Re:Unlikely

[tbannist]

Companies the size of Facebook that really get into trouble whine at governments to bail them out.

So a government bail out is the reason that MySpace is the vibrant, innovative company that it is today?

Perhaps my memory is slipping, but while I remember banks and manufacturing (especially car and plane manufacturing) getting bail outs, I don't remember any tech companies ever getting a government bail out...

Re:Unlikely

[admin7087]

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

Re:Nice try ivan

[Anonymous Coward]

Less successful in everything?

Well, my wife loves me and likes spending time with me.

I've never been divorced.

I've never been disliked by the majority of my fellow countrymen

I have genuine friends

Sure he has more money, fame, and duped a bunch of people into voting for him. So if those are the things which are most important to you in this life...well that sounds like a pretty shitty life to me compared to genuine friendships and the love of a spouse.

Huge middle finger to you, Facebook

[OneHundredAndTen]

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.

Shadow profile: info from members and analytics

[tepples]

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.

Don't use one email address

[MobyDisk]

This is why I use a different email address for every service. If you don't have your own domain, then use one of the many services that let you do this easily. Then you can just delete the email address when companies like Facebook start spamming you. It also lets you know who is selling your email address to advertisers.