Ok creepy!
July 31, 2009Erin 9 Comments »Facebook has suggested a friend to me. It’s someone who I share no ‘friends’ with on Facebook, and have ever only corresponded with via my gmail account. I checked their profile page and while it is set to high privacy, the country that they live in gives it away.
Why would Facebook know to suggest this friend to me? There is no link between myself and this person, beyond my gmail. Seriously, how did it get this information???
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 10:22 am
This happened to me as well – except it’s an email that is only in an email account I haven’t used or logged into for over a year. Very, very creepy.
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I’ve had this happen, too, and it’s really creepy. It keeps suggesting this guy that I dated for a few weeks as a friend.. the only things connecting us are that we have corresponded via email, and we are both ‘fans’ of the same local queer group.
If you find out how this happened to you, I’d love to know. My profile is very locked down on Facebook, and this is totally creeping me out.
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Creepy!
If you log into facebook with your gmail then they may know your contact list… Particularly if you’ve ever done that thing where you search for friends on facebook? Or could there be, instead of a mutual friend, TWO degrees of separation? (I don’t know if facebook is capable of that.)
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Rachel is right. If Facebook is your log in email and you did the search for friends thing when you first signed up, it will tell you when someone you have the email address for signs up or changes their search settings.
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I don’t think I did the ‘search for friends’ thing because I don’t like the idea of giving outside sources other people’s contact information, especially Facebook that I’m already unsure about. And even if I did, I would not have sent this person an invitation to join Facebook because I do not know them hardly at all.
I probably do have two degrees of separation, but I’m not sure if my friend has this person friended.
Creepy. I don’t like it.
Posted on August 2nd, 2009 at 3:01 am
if you send out a tweet about it sometimes FB people will reply – I have a FB exec that follows me and he has answered my questions before so I can RT for you if you like
Posted on August 2nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Yes please!
Posted on August 3rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Erin: You might not have done the “Search for friends” thing, but they may have and gotten your email address from them.
Posted on August 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 pm
And that would be why I don’t like Facebook. Creepers.