How does Facebook know who I know? Freaky!

[Claudia1]

I just signed up on Facebook with the bare minimum of info.... no pics... nothing else. I did it so that I can visit an alumni facebook page.

Well, when I activated my page, it gave me pics of a dozen or more people that I might know..... and I knew every single one of them! Two were from another town. Everytime I have checked my page, it gives me more people that I know.

I will admit that I was disturbed by this.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

That happened to me as well. I think it's people that have looked you up but I'm not really sure.

 

[luvthatduke]

Facebook automatically reads your email address book.
When I went to set up an account the same thing happened
to me, as it did you, and like you it freaked me out enough
that I stopped at that point, but of course now I have a
Facebook account that is minimally set up but I can't shut
it down without giving their website
even more information than I did when I started.

The fact that a website can read my address book without
giving me a glaring warning, then - in nanoseconds - it searches
it's own database to match any address found on my computer,
well, I don't even know what to say...

I know it's my address book because when pictures of people I
don't know were included with family, friends, etc., I compared
all of the names and/or addresses and leftover emails from
freecycle.com and ebay and every single one of the "unkown"
people was leftover in my address book.

Unfortunately, my phone company now uses
Gmail for all of their customers email and I have yet to figure out
how to permanently delete my emails, while saving them
to my hard drive only, and this includes any address I have
ever rec'd email from or sent to - even when I "delete" it, it's not
really deleted from Gmail. The reason I am going on about this is
because I think Google/Gmail makes it easier for Facebook to
instantly search my PC for addresses.

 

[bicker]

I don't have an address book for Facebook to have read. Facebook doesn't read hard drives without (perhaps inadvertent, but physical) authorization from the user.

Facebook keeps track of everyone who has searched for you on Facebook.

They also know who the people they think you know and the people they know you know know.

So your recommendations are a reflection of several things.

 

[Ceila]

Facebook automatically reads your email address book.

This isn't true. However, it is very easy to inadvertently give them permission to do so, though, by clicking on a certain thing (can't remember which one, but my DH did it by accident).

 

[Acklander]

They don't read your contact list without permission, however if your e-mail address is in someone else's contact list and they gave permission, it shows a connection between the 2 of you.

 

[luvsJack]

Wouldn't they be able to tell by the other people who are fans of the alumni site?

I get suggestions all the time of people who are friends of friends or fans of some of the pages I am a fan of. None of these people are a part of any address book or really connected to me in any way other than being friends of friends, most are people I haven't had contact with in years.

 

[Tinijocaro]

If you listed your high school, graduation year, college, or place of employment, fb will find others who have listed the same and connect you.

 

[Imzadi]

Unfortunately, my phone company now uses
Gmail for all of their customers email and I have yet to figure out
how to permanently delete my emails, while saving them
to my hard drive only, and this includes any address I have
ever rec'd email from or sent to - even when I "delete" it, it's not
really deleted from Gmail.

What do you mean by this please?

You hit the delete key. Then it goes to your Trash folder - which saves stuff for 30 days in case you want to UNdelete something you accidentally deleted. You can manually delete the contents of your Trash folder any time you want.

If you mean something else, I'd appreciate knowing.

 

[Claudia1]

Thanks for the info. None of the people suggested were part of the alumni group but most were church friends and personal friends. They could have searched for me at some time.

Funny, my DH, DS or DD have never been suggested!

 

[Robinrs]

FB automatically connected me with people who listed my jobs, schools or interests. It's not science or ESP...

LinkedIn does the same thing.

 

[Simba's Mom]

The only thing I thought was kind of freaky was when I was on vacation and logged onto Facebook from the business center at an out-of-state hotel. Facebook said they "recognized" that I was logging on from a foreign computer so they "tested" me by showing me pictures of people I'd identified as friends and asked me to name them. When I'd correctly named enough friends to satisfy them, they let me continue. Maybe it's just my lack of understanding of the way computers work that got me freaked out by this.

 

[Squirlz]

My wife just got a Droid Incredible phone. First night she's having fun, checking it out, so I thought I'd call her just for fun. I'm sitting next to her on the couch. When her phone rang, my Facebook avatar appeared on her screen! How the heck did that happen?

 

[goofy's friends]

The only thing I thought was kind of freaky was when I was on vacation and logged onto Facebook from the business center at an out-of-state hotel. Facebook said they "recognized" that I was logging on from a foreign computer so they "tested" me by showing me pictures of people I'd identified as friends and asked me to name them. When I'd correctly named enough friends to satisfy them, they let me continue. Maybe it's just my lack of understanding of the way computers work that got me freaked out by this.

I did that and they just asked for my birthday....wow, a quiz on your friends!/!?!?

 

[FireDancer]

The only thing I thought was kind of freaky was when I was on vacation and logged onto Facebook from the business center at an out-of-state hotel. Facebook said they "recognized" that I was logging on from a foreign computer so they "tested" me by showing me pictures of people I'd identified as friends and asked me to name them. When I'd correctly named enough friends to satisfy them, they let me continue. Maybe it's just my lack of understanding of the way computers work that got me freaked out by this.

They know what IP address you are logging in from and can use geolocation to determine where that IP is. If you normally log in from an IP in city A but are now logging in from an IP in City B they will know that as would anyone who runs a server and logs that information. This is trivial to do.

My wife just got a Droid Incredible phone. First night she's having fun, checking it out, so I thought I'd call her just for fun. I'm sitting next to her on the couch. When her phone rang, my Facebook avatar appeared on her screen! How the heck did that happen?

You can link contacts in the Adroid universe (along with others). A contact in your Facebook application, a contact in your gmail address book, and a contact in your phone list can all be linked so they are known to the OS to be the same contact. This is quite nice and keeps like contacts from being siloed in different applications. I believe this was rolled out with Android 2.0 (Eclair). The Incredible runs the 2.1 Eclair update.

 

[bicker]

That feature popped up on my Facebook page this morning again. It asks you to put in your email address and password. I suppose it figures out who your provider is, logs in, and looks at the return addresses on email you've recently received?

 

[DisGirlAllie]

They also look for people that you have multiple mutual friends with

 

[scrapquitler]

Because you clicked the button that allowed Facebook to pull your address book from your email account....and it used those email addresses to find other people who already have facebook.

Once you add friends, Facebook will suggest more people that you might know (which will be friends of your facebook friends).

 

[Imzadi]

Because you clicked the button that allowed Facebook to pull your address book from your email account....and it used those email addresses to find other people who already have facebook.

Once you add friends, Facebook will suggest more people that you might know (which will be friends of your facebook friends).

It's like that old Organics shampoo commercial from back in the '70s. "And I told two friends about it. Then they told two friends about it, who told two friends. . . And so on. . . and so on. . . and so on. . ."

 

[rainydayplay]

They know what IP address you are logging in from and can use geolocation to determine where that IP is. If you normally log in from an IP in city A but are now logging in from an IP in City B they will know that as would anyone who runs a server and logs that information. This is trivial to do.



You can link contacts in the Adroid universe (along with others). A contact in your Facebook application, a contact in your gmail address book, and a contact in your phone list can all be linked so they are known to the OS to be the same contact. This is quite nice and keeps like contacts from being siloed in different applications. I believe this was rolled out with Android 2.0 (Eclair). The Incredible runs the 2.1 Eclair update.

I think it uses your IP address to find people who are local for you -- or, it at least matches you up with people who live close to where you say you are from. It will suggest people who have the same interests as you, who you share at least one friend with, etc.

I have a Blackberry. When I set up Facebook for Blackberry, it asked me if I wanted to use my phone contacts to search for friends on Facebook. It did that, and I got to choose whether or not I wanted to request to be their friends, plus it shows their Facebook Picture when that person calls.