Be Excellent To Each Other

This is a long, dull story.

When I got my iPhone last september, the first thing I did was link contacts with Gmail. This was a mistake. It filled my contacts list on my iPhone with literally everyone I had ever emailed. So what I did was purge my Gmail contacts list back to relevant people, and relinked the two. Better.

Today I'm on facebook, and in the right hand bar was a friend suggestion for my ex-girlfriend. This was odd, as it wasn't a 'Someone says you should be friends with...'. It was Facebook generated. Only a search of my friends and review of her profile reveals she only has one friend, and it isn't anyone I know.

This confused me. So I clicked on the other suggestions link. In there, was the manager of the Big Chill Bar, a client, and the writers of The Guardian minute by minute Olympics coverage from last summer. The only link between these people is that I have emailed them from Gmail at some point in the past. However, they were cleared in the Purge from my Gmail contacts last september.

As an added detail, should you care, all emails to/from my ex went to a folder on Gmail. That folder was deleted and all emails trashed 2 years ago. So you can conclude that my Ex does not feature in my Gmail in any form, nor has she done.

The only reason that Facebook is making this link between me and these other people is that when I did a 'Search your email contacts for friends who may be on facebook' it has saved the contacts information. Incidentally, the Ex did not, and does not now appear in those results when I do a search, so it is not tracing that information from Gmail today.


Now, if I look on the page on that email search on Facebook, it very very clearly says 'Facebook will not store your data or contacts without your permission'. You lying fucking cunts.

In reality, I don't actually care that much, other than the complete and utter blatant lie. I'm not going to leave facebook out of principal because I actually like it for seeing photos and stuff. Thats the only reason, but reason enough. Nor can I be arsed going to the Information Commissioner. And I know that Facebook are legend for this abuse through their Ts&Cs, but I felt like a rant. And some of you may actually care enough, if you weren't already aware of it.

Rant ends.

Edit. It actually reads 'We will not store your password or contact anyone without your permission' Although I'm sure the old note read differently, I take back the allegation of 'Blatant Lie'. Although I am sure there is a data protection issue here.

If there is a data protection issue, one could argue that it's around whoever is in your Contacts List, not you. They've already got all your data, it's the people in your Contacts that should be annoyed

Well I'm a little spooked, it's picked up a friend of the family as "someone I may know"

and yes, I do know them. But how does it know that I know them? we have no mutual friends. I'm not on anything like hotmail, gmail etc.

Could it be that they are on one of those, and they have my email, and that's what's linked me to them?

Malc

I had a similar thing when it suggested my (soon to be ex-) step mother. No friends in common, and I've only ever added people manually. I must be on her hotmail contacts.

At that point, I really wished Facebook had a "fuck off" button.

there was a notice saying that people can have usernames which makes it easier to find friends and contacts... how is something easier than THE PERSONS FUCKING NAME to identify them?
I hate the way it's trying to be twitter.

Do you have any friends called John Smith?

no.

But when you type in john or whatever in the search bit, it gives you the list of people called john/have john in their name with a little picture.. it's simple enough.

Four of them . They all wear green jackets and have a strange plastic collar on.

They all have smithy as a nickname.... it doesnt help

But sometimes the list can be pretty long - surely it would be quicker if you knew your friend John had the username BumWangler5000 it would speed things up a bit?

I dont see the point of it personally.

I wont have a clue what half of them change their nickname to, it'll just add more confusion.

but that is a fault with their search engine, it has no advanced features to the extent that you can't even narrow down by country.

Facebook usernames... sigh.

Cue endless hawtGurl1993 and buffman666 shenanigans.

I wonder is Crasty Craster is taken?

True, there are better ways.

but riles' point still stands.

I signed up with my uni email account and it's saying I should be friends with my former landlord, we have no friends in common, I presume it's from the emails Ive sent from that account or something, which is strange.

Or (see above) your landlord has let Facebook rifle through his contacts, one of which is you, and it's remembered you despite him not adding you as a friend. The cheeky so-and-so!

I'd delete my Facebook account if I weren't so reliant on it for seeing my friends' photos.

I hit the wrong button last night and inadvertantly became a 'fan' of Vimto. I don't even like the stuff.

Maybe you do now, and you don't realise it yet? Could be another example of Facebook knowing things it shouldn't.

I think it automatically shows the people nearest to you higher up the list which helps if you're looking for someone local but obviously isn't an awful lot of use if you want to add someone from further afield.

isnt it nearest/in the same networks?

I thought the idea of Facebook usernames was primarily so you could share your profile link with other people easier, i.e. http://www.facebook.com/BummerTriedToATree rather than http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?u=282u94823845234

I'd imagine you gave it permission when you told it to hunt through your contact book (in the small print, like).

Don't let your fancy-schmancy facts get in the way of a RilesRant^TM.

Unless they've got privacy settings that prevent them being in those searches.

But surely those same privacy settings would be the same for the usernames aswell

Hush now.

I don't doubt it is in the small print, what with their smart lawyers. I'm amazed that they keep it for over nine months though. If anything, it means I'll ignore their helpful suggestions in future, as if they consider sending one email to one person 3 years ago, which they last heard of a year ago, means that they might be a friend, then I suggest they reconsider their concept of friendship.

On the flipside, it'll well piss off the ex if she gets the reciprocal suggestion. Every cloud and all that...

Who owns Facebook?
Who owns Twitter?
Who owns Myspace?

Imagine if they MERGED. (shudder)

Probably but I was referring to the alternative being the "suggest a friend" stuff, which could suggest to you people you couldn't otherwise find if you tried. To get my mum to be able to add her friend with those settings I had to open up my mum's account briefly and send them a link to the public page, there was no other visible way for two people set private to find each other, even if I had the uid.

Gmail. Aaaah!

MyTwitFace?

Yes, it is.


Mostly privately owned by the founders, Microsoft have a small stake.

Privately owned. The core team were also the team who founded Blogger and then sold it to Google for megabucks.

News International.

TwitMyFace
/partridge

MTFywaSicpteatBceoeeork actually.

I'm assuming everyone who still uses this has turned off the search indexing they've just opted everyone into? If not, it's in Settings -> Privacy -> Search.

Didn't they turn on search engine indexing a few years ago? Or have they made it more worser?

They've brought in revised privacy settings to encourage users to share more of their data. When I logged in last week or so, I was presented with the options of what I wanted to share. However, if I chose their defaults, it would share status updates and a lot more, whereas in the past you'd have had to be a friend to see that. So I imagine there's a fair few people who haven't realised their status updates are now public.

I've just checked through my picture albums and pretty much all of them were set to 'Everyone'. I did not set them up like that, apart from the Kitchen pictures that I shared on here. Flipping cheek.

Yes, I did all that too. But I think they turned on search engine indexing some time ago.

Yeah, here we go - 2007: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/face ... xing/5590/

Since 2007

No


Realistically who is going to see them other than friends of friends?

EVERYONE! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? THEY'RE WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW!

*watches dave on his spare monitor*

Do not care.

Most of my photos are not of me anyway.

I thank the good Lord for small mercies.

This is my new profile pic:


Edit: By default, anyone can see that.

Bless Lewie, i did not know you were 12.. but don't you look cute

I actually thought he'd used a picture of me for a joke for a few seconds

Nice specs though.

Should have a comma after 'you', surely?

I look a lot younger without facial hair.