Facebook replaces users' e-mails with site-specific address

[Brother_Bliss]

Facebook replaces users' e-mails with site-specific address

By Nick Foley, USA TODAY

Facebook has done it again — alienated some of its 900 million members by making unannounced changes to the social network.

The latest kerfuffle is over Facebook's decision to replace the personal e-mail addresses on a user's profile page with an @facebook.com e-mail address. And it coincided with a decision Monday by Facebook to halt testing — at least temporarily — of a feature called Find Friends Nearby, a location service that identifies other Facebook users in the vicinity. Meredith Chin, Facebook's manager of product communications, said that no launch date has been set.

The makers of a similar app, Friendthem, has accused Facebook of stealing its idea.

Facebook has come under fire from users before, most noticeably in 2009 after it secretly altered members' privacy settings. That move led to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and an order requiring the company to submit to 20 years of monitoring related to its privacy practices.

It's not clear whether privacy issues were involved in the recent changes. Facebook says it notified users of the social-networking site — at the top of their home pages — that they would be assigned Facebook e-mail addresses. However, the company did not explain that all other e-mail addresses would be hidden and replaced by an unfamiliar address generated by Facebook.

"That was just a choice that we made," says Chin. "If there continues to be confusion, we may add a … notification in some way."

The company says it made the change to streamline communication between users. Chin says the default @facebook.com address allows users to keep their other e-mail addresses private, if they so desire. "But they can choose to show them."

Bethesda, Md., resident Nick Sevilla, 21, said he was surprised to find out an e-mail account had been created for him without his knowledge. "I definitely would have liked to have been alerted."

Facebook users who want to restore their original e-mail addresses can do so by going to "Contact Info" and clicking "Edit." You'll be able to choose which e-mail addresses you would like to make public, as well as with whom you prefer to share them.

Article Source: USA Today

[Brother_Bliss]

If you were displaying another email address on your profile, Facebook has removed that address and replaced it with your new @facebook.com address.

Shame on them. People will continue to tolerate it though instead of leave them for better services like Google Plus.

[Hallett 82]

It is a Man-In-The-Middle hijack tactic . . nasty.

So many members will not notice for a long time. It will be out there until they are warned and change their settings.

[Joe Schmoe]

If you were displaying another email address on your profile, Facebook has removed that address and replaced it with your new @facebook.com address.

Shame on them. People will continue to tolerate it though instead of leave them for better services like Google Plus.

Not trying to start an argument. But, isn't this move actually kind of better for user privacy than the other way around? Or am I missing something?

I do agree however that just making a blanket change like this unannounced and without permission is pretty stupid.

I also agree that Google Plus is way better. I detest having a facebook account, but unfortunately right now that is the only way my Grandmother and other close friends send me stuff. I rarely ever check it, and keep trying to get them to switch to G+. :-)

[Brother_Bliss]

If you were displaying another email address on your profile, Facebook has removed that address and replaced it with your new @facebook.com address.

Shame on them. People will continue to tolerate it though instead of leave them for better services like Google Plus.

Not trying to start an argument. But, isn't this move actually kind of better for user privacy than the other way around? Or am I missing something?

I do agree however that just making a blanket change like this unannounced and without permission is pretty stupid.

I also agree that Google Plus is way better. I detest having a facebook account, but unfortunately right now that is the only way my Grandmother and other close friends send me stuff. I rarely ever check it, and keep trying to get them to switch to G+. :-)

Well we all got facebook.com email addresses a while back. They wanted us to link it to our existing email accounts and mobile numbers so that facebook would be the one stop shop for all our messaging needs. Problem is nobody used it. So this was a dirty ploy to try and get people using it.

I have several email addresses, and certain ones display to certain folks depending on which list I have them in. The other day, all my other email addresses were removed from my profile and everyone got to see my @facebook.com email address. Well forget that, I use gmail and everything is labeled based on which email address they use to contact me. If you think the Facebook posting and replying GUI/design is aweful, it's messaging is just as bad and would function something terrible as an "email account".

I had to go back and reorganize my contact information, which is tedious for me because I have a lot of lists.