John Stumbles wrote:
Having just, with some unease*, bitten the bullet and signed up to
facebook** I'm gobsmacked how many people it suggests as friends, most
of whome I know but some I haven't corresponded with for years. How
does it do it? I haven't offered it my address book but ISTR it
invited me to do that. Is it that everyone else has done so and it's
finding my
email addy in other people's address books and offering links that
way?

I've now deleted*** my 'real' email address which facebook seemed to
have listed for me (how? I didn't give it to them) and am sticking
with a " type address, so theoretically it
shouldn't be able to link people up with me through that, though if
their address books contain my real name alongside my address it may
still be able to guess.


* I have a deep sense of unease that when They come to get Us we'll
have done most of the detective work for them :-

** as myself: I was already on there under a pseudonym

*** ok, I asked fb to delete it: but they could be keeping it but not
telling me

John,

having read quite a bit about facebook over the last year, I wouldn't touch
them with the proverbial bargepole.

It's amazing the amount of personal info they can extract and use from their
subscribers - read their T&Cs very carefully.

At one stage, their T&Cs stated that whatever you posted there became theirs
and whilst you could archive your 'site' they wouldn't allow you to delete
it (this was changed after a bit of a ding-dong in the 'States).

There has also been a recent 'privacy' issue whereby they made it rather
complicated to adjust the security settings from 'open' to 'private' if you
wished - again this has now been 'partially' rectified after a lot of
complaints were made.

It would also appear that many employers search facebook for information on
existing and prospective employees - all rather George Orwellian in my own
opinion.


Cash