Facebook and the Crazy Contact List
Recently a lot of people have been up in arms claiming Facebook is sharing phone numbers of cell phone contacts. It isn’t doing this without permission, as it happens. I recall well when I set up my Facebook access on my phone it asked me if I wanted to pull in my contacts. I said no. But it isn’t surprising people didn’t notice it. The process is quick and we have a tendency to just click things.
So, how do you fix this?
First, make sure you are signed into your account.
Then go to this page http://www.facebook.com/contact_importer/remove_uploads.php?r=%2Fphonebook and it will remove all imported contacts for you. It takes a bit of time (a lot of people are requesting this right now.
Does it work? You know, I’m not really sure. But that is what I read you are supposed to do on Facebook. You actually can access this from your contacts list.
1. Account
2. Edit Friends
3. Contacts
4. Look to the right and you will see information and a link.
So what is actually going on?
Keep in mind, Facebook isn’t actually sharing your contacts’ information with anyone but you. It is using that information to try to connect you with people with whom you aren’t connected however. So yes, Facebook has gotten a lot of phone numbers and is using that information in a vaguely spooky way. Also, Facebook has gotten a lot of phone numbers and has connected them to a lot of people. Who knows what they will do in the future even if they aren’t doing anything wrong right now.
Whenever you are dealing with any of these options to pull information into an account from another one, especially from your cell phone, give it some serious thought. It might be easy, but the information you might be compromising isn’t necessarily just your own.
Note to lawyers
Oh and lawyers, you should be especially careful. You could end up with Facebook recommending you be friends with people you don’t want to communicate with on Facebook. This is why I always tell members of the legal profession never to allow Facebook to pull in friends via email, cell or anything else.
Just take the time to connect with people manually. It is much safer.
LinkedIn Did a Bad Bad Thing
The bad boy this month is really LinkedIn. With virtually no warning it opted all of its members into social advertising. And then it hid how to remove it even better than Facebook hides its myriad privacy settings. It has always been a bit hard to find account settings on LinkedIn. So here is how you handle this particular privacy nightmare.
1. Hover your mouse over your name on the right side of the screen.
2. Click on settings.
3. Click on Account.
4. Click on Manage Social Advertising and click the check box.
5. While you are at it, click on Turn on/off enhanced advertising and click the check box.
Problem solved.