Facebook Sneakiness?

Samsonite1

I do not really use Facebook other than many friends and family send messages to it so it is an unwanted email client from my perspective.

Anyway, the sneaky part. When you sign up, Facebook (and LinkedIn for that matter) will ask to trawl through your email account (requesting username and password) so that it can find your contacts on Facebook (and who knows what else).

I have never allowed Facebook to look at my email account(s) but I have noticed that it has started making friends suggestions based on other people allowing this where I am in their address books (or that is my guess). For example, my estate agent has recently popped up as someone I may know - there is absolutely no reason why they would come up as a suggestion other than the fact that we have exchanged emails.

It just seems horrific that you are not safe from social media linking you to various people even if you do not participate yourself. Anyone with your email address can drop you into this without even knowing.

Not sure what the point of this post is, but felt it was interesting/scary enough to post about!

abibee

Companies like Facebook and Google etc., all want to know everything about everyone, including when you last did a poop. The more info they have on the most amount of people possible, the more valuable the data.

Nothing is private, nothing is sacred. They are tracking your every move online as best they can.

esuhl

Yeah... that's kind of their business model. They want to know everything about you, then sell that information to advertisers.

bsod

Lots of apps lift data from mobile phonebooks if they are given permission, you don't need an account or to have ever visited the site for them to get this data and start spamming you

Samsonite1

esuhl wrote: »

Yeah... that's kind of their business model. They want to know everything about you, then sell that information to advertisers.

At this point it almost seems like one step on from phishing because they have found my email address in someone else's phone or email account (phone probably more likely as the apps can ninja the information without the user knowing). They are asking me to essentially confirm something by asking if I know them and if I respond they then have something from me that they can use.

I suppose the other problem is that you cannot undo the data that they have collected. If they know who your family are then you cannot erase this. If your siblings and other family members have tagged you as their family members, they have the data anyway. You basically cannot control your own data unless you distance yourself from family in terms of social media. It's a tough one!

AndyPix

Its not that they have raided your phonebook, although they will if you let them ,
What has most likely happened here is that they are using tracking cookies and the facebook site/app can see that you have visited the estate agents website and can also see that that website has a facebook page.
So it then asks you if you know this person/business ..


In the same way that if you ever buy something online whilst logged into your google account, from that point forward you will see targeted ads on other websites related to what you bought.


Its terrible how much they know about us

esuhl

Some of these articles are a bit old, but they explains how Facebook monitors which websites you visit. Just the presence of a "Like" button on a site means that Facebook can track you (even if you don't have a Facebook account).

http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/09/facebook_stop_tracking_people/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/03/facebook_to_belgian_privacy_watchdog_block_all_the_cookies_across_the_web_then/

The facial recognition tagging is quite disturbing too. Essentially it allows your Facebook account to be tied to your real identity.

Apparently they've started tracking people's visits to physical shops too:

http://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/creepy-facebook-now-tracking-you-in-stores

Samsonite1

esuhl wrote: »

Some of these articles are a bit old, but they explains how Facebook monitors which websites you visit. Just the presence of a "Like" button on a site means that Facebook can track you (even if you don't have a Facebook account).

http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/09/facebook_stop_tracking_people/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/03/facebook_to_belgian_privacy_watchdog_block_all_the_cookies_across_the_web_then/

The facial recognition tagging is quite disturbing too. Essentially it allows your Facebook account to be tied to your real identity.

Apparently they've started tracking people's visits to physical shops too:

http://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/creepy-facebook-now-tracking-you-in-stores

Thanks - I know a fair bit about it as I also used to implement Facebook integrations for websites and I know never to sign into anything via Facebook or use a like button, join a group. I basically do not use Facebook other than to allow people message me (if they insist on not using normal emails) - even this much usage is too much!

mr_fishbulb

WhatsApp

Facebook bought WhatsApp. If you have WhatsApp on your phone, and have contacts in your phone who have registered their mobile number on Facebook, but you aren't friends with them, it will suggest you know them.

Samsonite1

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

WhatsApp

Facebook bought WhatsApp. If you have WhatsApp on your phone, and have contacts in your phone who have registered their mobile number on Facebook, but you aren't friends with them, it will suggest you know them.

That's a good point - any acquisition of this kind would probably mean the same too - instant connections of other app users.

paddyrg

If it's not obvious what the business commodity is, it's you.