Facebook Switches Everyone's Emails to @Facebook.com

[engine]

Facebook Switches Everyone's Emails to @Facebook.com [latimes.com]

Without asking for permission, Facebook has changed users' listed email address to one ending in "@facebook.com."

The changed was discovered Saturday, and has resulted in either users having their @facebook.com address being listed or simply having all of their other addresses be hidden, as happened in my case.

[jinxed]

Users were not even notified beforehand?

Poor.

[zeus]

Serious I just cant believe they even have a single member, they have got so many warnings over time that FB is not a cool place and not they are listed. When google got listed things went bad for users

[tbear]

Not everyone's, it seems. Mine is not changed......

.....yet...LOL

[Robert Charlton]

So, in contrast to Google Plus, is this Gmail Minus?

[Marshall]

Mine was switched. Here is information on switching it back:
How to reverse Facebook's decision to force its email on you [dvice.com]

Marshall

[lexipixel]

As noted by blogger Gervase Markham, (one of the first people to publicly post about this change), this is very close to a "Man in the Middle" security attack.

It's obvious they're attempting to route all messages through "@facebook.com" addresses to gain the raw email text, senders names, etc.. all valuable data to profile people with.

Now instead of someone directly emailing you, you'll get a notice from Facebook saying "You have messages waiting" and be forced to login to FB to read them.

IMO, FB is the sleaziest company I've even see on the net.

[bill]

"Man in the Middle" security attack

Thanks for that. When I first read about this I didn't think much of it.

I don't show any e-mail address publicly, but different groups of friends see different addresses. Because I had such specific settings they didn't change any of my existing addresses. However they did add this @facebook.com address to my public timeline and made it visible to all. I fixed that.

[jecasc]

Let's see what that means in my country:

Whosoever unlawfully intercepts data (section 202a (2)) not intended for him, for himself or another by technical means from a non-public data processing facility or from the electromagnetic broadcast of a data processing facility, shall be liable to imprisonment of not more than two years or a fine, unless the offence incurs a more severe penalty under other provisions.

It seems someone at Facebook is desperatly trying to get himself some time in jail.

[engine]

What is it with some businesses, do they have no common sense!

This is a security and privacy issue.

Although most people can guess it, everyone had better go in and change that setting to private.

[Rosalind]

What this means is anyone can send email to most Facebook users, without having to join the site. If I understand correctly, all you need is the public url and you can guess the address. Spammers will be breaking out the bubbly.

[piatkow]

Serious I just cant believe they even have a single member, they have got so many warnings over time that FB is not a cool place and not they are listed.

Trouble is that many organisations use FB as their primary communication channel. You want to know when the next meeting of your PTA / sports club / choir etc is being held, you must have an account at FB.

[StoutFiles]

Trouble is that many organisations use FB as their primary communication channel. You want to know when the next meeting of your PTA / sports club / choir etc is being held, you must have an account at FB.

Exactly. Everyone is on Facebook because everyone else is. From what I've read/seen, the majority pof people have a negative opinion of the site and would like to leave, there's just no comparable alternative. People stick around to stay in the loop.

I prefer to be one of their less desirable users. Log in only to check messages, then log back out, never clicking any ads or spending one dime in their marketplace.

[bhonda]

Man, that's sneaky. Aside from the obvious concern about Facebook displaying an email address publically on profiles without the user's consent, does this really mean non-users can contact via Facebook?

Like Rosalind said, that's a spammer's dream.

[jecasc]

Imagine the white pages would start to show a p.o. box of their own as postal address next to your name and phone number to get at your mail and search it for advertising related information.

So listen up phone companies here is what you have to do:

1. Provide a free p.o. box to your customers - if they want it or not.

2. Wait a few month.

3. Switch the postal addresses in phone books to the p.o box and wait for the incoming mail.

If Facebook can do it, why not you? Simply tell people it is a service to prevent unwanted advertising by mail.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If someone REALLY thinks you have an @facebook email, because they see it in your profile, and they email you can Facebook see the content? The content would be on their servers now wouldn't it. This sounds almost criminal.

If I create an @zuckerberg service and place it in HIS profiles without asking him I can then receive emails destined for him, think he'd like that?

[jecasc]

and they email you can Facebook see the content? The content would be on their servers now wouldn't it. This sounds almost criminal.

As far as I know emails that go to Facebook Email addresses are saved in the Facebook Message Box. Which also means that Facebook probably uses the information for profiling and advertising.

And I'd go as far as saying that this not only sounds almost criminal, but it is. They are in this way intercepting messages, reading them and probably eploiting them for their own commercial gain.

[Leosghost]

My jurisdiction too, this breaks criminal law...

Then again ..who ever thought that Mark had ethics, and he is one of the "I'm a billionaire, criminal, and civil laws apply to others, not to me" who thinks that money can buy anything or any immunity from society's rules..

Unfortunately, given where facebook is incorporated, he is probably accurate to think that way..if he gets enough flack over this he may issue an "it was all a mistake on the part of some minion, the management were not aware" ( known as "the Google excuse" )..then backtrack, and be subject to no fine nor punishment which would actually make a difference to him..and certainly wouldn't dissuade facebook from their next privacy "surprise"..

A minimum of 90 days in "regular lawbreakers jail" might give pause to some of these "I can do what I want" company officers..as opposed to fines that wouldn't cover their private jets weekly fuel bill..

[netmeg]

Actually, it'll be pretty handy, because it'll put all the mail I don't want to see from people I don't want to hear from in one convenient message box that I never have to look at.

A convenient and time saving arrangement.

[not2easy]

I had read that it only affect accounts that use Timeline. I checked and my account shows a facebook email address but it is not active, they did not change mine which is set to "private". Users need to check (and recheck) their privacy settings because they do reset them to defaults with some updates. Their default settings are what needs to be addressed. It is a terrible place that people adopted when it wasn't that bad.

[Bewenched]

I dont use timeline so mine did not change. Hate those timeline profiles.

[lexipixel]

I had read that it only affect accounts that use Timeline.

No, it is not restricted to timeline user's accounts, (and why would that matter anyway).

In the earliest days of Facebook you could claim your screen name, (e.g. -- lets say I wanted to be sure to tie up "exampleguy"). That would give me the user name "exampleguy" and I could use the direct url of:

www.facebook.com/exampleguy

Under the new @facebook mail scam, that makes my email address:

[e-mail]

But, since I didn't want my personal friends to know I was in the "exampleguy" business, I added a personal email address and set the myriad of FB account settings / privacy setting to show the email address:

[e-mail]

but, the new system, now displays my [e-mail] to everyone instead -- outing me as the "exampleguy".

(privacy advocates can substitute "exampleguy" for anything else and see how this could cause problems).

[engine]

lexipixel's correct, it's nothing to do with timeline.
My e-mail was set to private, yet they made the @facebook one public.

[lexipixel]

This WSJ article shows that even "tech media" people are missign the point that FB has positioned itself as a "man in the middle", or the security implications of allowing a company with no ethics to get into your email:

Facebook's Email Change Riles Users
[online.wsj.com...]

But the article does quote an interesting set of numbers for email accounts at Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail:

According to the most recent available data from comScore, Microsoft's Hotmail was the most popular Internet-based email service globally as of May, with about 325 million unique visitors. Yahoo's service ranked second, with roughly 298 million users, while Google's Gmail garnered about 289 million users.

[Robert Charlton]

lexipixel's correct, it's nothing to do with timeline.
My e-mail was set to private, yet they made the @facebook one public.

What you need to do if you don't use Timeline is to go... not to your Privacy settings, as you would expect, albeit there might be a way in via that route... but to view your Profile, and click on the Edit Profile button up in the top right area of your profile page just below the menu bar.

Then select "Contact Information" from the menu over in the left column. Email addresses will have radio button type circles showing whether they're displayed. Select "Hidden from Profile" using the selection arrow to the right of the circle. It's hidden when there's a diagonal line through the circle. Be sure to click "Save Changes" down at the bottom of the page.

You can also use "View As..." to see how the page appears to whomever you choose to name in the dialogue box.

An additional bit of confusion... if you're Joe Smith, your FB email address may now be [e-mail]. The appended number is also reflected in your page address. Apparently, you can change that (whatever's appended to your name, I think they mean) just once. I'm not sure what the most allowable, user-friendly, hippest change would be... maybe [e-mail]... but that may not be allowed. ;)

[lucy24]

Can I assume that this applies to all FB members, including the nine-year-olds claiming to be 13 and the thirteen-year-olds who don't have to claim anything?

[jimji]

I have slowly come to realize that we have a soup line mentality at these companies that make money on the Internet.

What I mean is they view the price of 0 as enough reason to treat a "customer" with disrespect.

The soup line mentality is that it seems they don't view the price tag as simply having been set at 0 as opposed to 5 or 10 dollars / pounds / Euros and so forth. Rather, they seem to view that figure of 0 as having done some sort of great deed that needs to be rewarded from time-to-time by the customer allowing them to treat the customer like so much cattle. Brand them. Herd them onto the
truck and move them over there -- change their address, as in this latest case. Change their appearance to the outside world, also as in this latest case. If you change the email address shown to others without my okay, you have disrespected me.

If you are in a soup line THAT IS FREE. It is a handout. You do not really have any rights unless the people that made it poison you. If you don't like the taste, too bloody bad.

But something like FaceCrook or Google, or all those other folks set the price tag for us at 0 dollars / pounds / Euros and that is the price. We are still customers and deserve the respect a customer would expect if it were the brick-and-mortar world.

If for some reason Fiat were to suddenly set a 0 price tag on one of their autos and we were able to get to the front of the line and purchase that auto we would still expect to be treated just like the fella/gal last week that had to pay the normal sticker price. We would not tolerate the Fiat folks sending an employee over to our house at 1am in the morning to change the colour of the car after we "purchased" the car.

Yet, these social media types and some that provide email products at a price tag of 0 seem to think that the price being set as 0 entitles them to pour bovine excrement upon those that purchased the product at the price that was set -- 0 dollars / pounds / Euros.

And this behaviour seems to have set in for the duration, doesn't it? It appears that there is little that can be done to reverse the course of this thinking.

[onepointone]

Often repeated, but if you don't pay for a product, YOU are the product.

Also, I dont remember any internet "giants", myspace, altavista, whatever, going down because of 'bad deed's. It's always because something "better" came along.

So, if you're a co. in the sweet spot of monopoly, you have to push the limits legally, (forget ethically) to see what you can get away with. (grow or die mentality etc.) The sheep just follow along for the ride.

[hal12b]

I deactivated my account 3 weeks ago... was tough the first few days, but I don't miss it at all anymore. It has turned into myspace. I have serious concerns about its privacy policies that change all the time. The company is no good... just harvests your info. No good will come out of this for anybody.

[anallawalla]

I use FB to keep up for professional reasons but severely limit my connections. The email change rolled out to my account just today and I promptly hid it.