Hello:

I'm a private type individual. Furthermore, I UNDERSTAND how personal data gets spread around, so I am scrupulous about my personal information. In fact, I'm literally off the grid. Very few people have my personal email address. Every OTHER internet contact, aside from SECURE sites, have a gmail address that is forwarded to my personal email address. Suffice to say, I guard my data.

Consequently, I am NOT a member of Facebook, nor ANY social website - and I mean NONE! THIS is as social as I get online. Therefore, you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from Facebook, inviting me to join, and listing people from my OWN email contact list, telling me that I already have friends there...

How in the HELL do they know that? They've either snooped into MY contact list, or those people's... But, if they snooped into theirs, my personal email address wouldn't be found - yet Facebook has it.

What's up with all that?

excon

FB gives its members the option of having their address book mined so it can invite their contacts to join. If just one person has your personal address and tells FB to go through his address book then your personal address shows up.

Big brother is watching you exy!

I get crap in my gmail all the time,and I dread who in hell has my contact details.

Identity theft is on the rise,and its no harm to be over protective with your personal information,but how they get the contact details is beyond me,I don't know how Facebook is policed.

Hello again, you guys:

I didn't know that stuff... Scary..

Actually, I just discovered that the email from Facebook WAS addressed to my gmail address. So, I wasn't as compromised as I thought...

I STILL don't like it - as though somebody cares.

excon

It's not too bad, Ex. You know I'm pretty cautious. If you read the privacy options carefully you can protect yourself very well. I'm on FB and I like it. Come join and we'll be friends.

With today's computers anyone ( almost) can be found. So much depends on how hard ( or bored) they are.

I'm with you exy.. I hate Facebook... Friends have urged me to join and reconnect with people from High School. My answer... Didn't connect much with them in High School... don't want to reconnect. The ones who I do stay in contact with I call or they call.

Im sure Facebook sells email addresses, and once you've joined up your info stays on there forever, and you are merely suspended.

The one and only email account I used when I joined Facebook, then tried to leave but found I couldn't gets a ton of spam sent to it on a daily basis.

So Im sure they're selling off emails.

I wish I had never heard of Facebook.

I'm with you on this one. It's nice when I meet up with someone who doesn't think I'm totally bonkers for the kind of privacy I keep. There was a thread on FB a while back when no one on the thread could figure out why I had such issues with it. And yet... people constantly posting about problems. It's one big virus if you ask me.

As for the settings, I've heard about things like them changing the default setting without bothering to tell you, so even though you made thus-and-so private, suddenly it's not private anymore - like you have to check those settings constantly.

I am a member of MySpace, but only because I found someone on there that I knew years ago and wanted to connect with. But I have NOTHING on there. I'm using an ID I never use elsewhere, an email I never use elsewhere, and absolutely zero info other than a couple of vague things like I'm in the US and female and stuff that could describe a billion other people on the planet. There's not a thing there for anyone to find.

Thus far I haven't gotten any emails from FB, but I have a few times gotten an invitation to MySpace because someone else lets them into their contact list. I think that's cause it wants to find your friends but isn't real clear that it's going to hack your address book and send everyone an invite.

If you join those places, you have to go through them very, very carefully, looking for every setting that exists, through every nook and cranny to make sure you made everything private and turned off default stuff, etc. My ISP just changed their email and now everything is like that - I'm automatically logged onto and visible for a chat, my real name goes on everything, etc. It took me two months to finally find all the settings to get rid of all that stuff. They aren't supposed to give out any personally identifying info, but they put your name all over everything on your "page" that goes with the email? (Including the chat, etc.) Something isn't right about that. How come I can't just do email anymore?

That would be AT&T for anyone interested in NOT having to go through that hassle. (AT&T, that's what is known as bad word of mouth, but it's your own fault for being so stupid.)

I guess I turned your rant into my rant.