

Facebook is sharing your phone number - jfruh
http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/192399/facebooks-phonebook-fiasco

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grannyg00se
You are responsible for sharing your phone number when you provide it to
Facebook. Facebook is doing what it feels like with it. As usual.

Are people really still surprised when they find out that information they
share with some free online web site is going to be used in ways that they
didn't anticipate?

~~~
jonknee
Facebook takes your _phonebook_ , not just your phone number.

~~~
dspillett
I don't think this is true. I know a few people who are on facebook and use
the same email address on facebook that I have them down as in my phone, and
facebook mobile did nothing with their numbers (which they have not put up
there).

Facebook had my number because you end up giving it when you try use the
official mobile apps, and they add it to your profile at that point (which
makes it available to all your contacts if you are not careful about your
privacy settings). Are you sure that it doesn't have the numbers of people in
your phonebook either because they explicitly added it to their profile or
because they have used facebook's "mobile" options?

(unless of course this is something new: I've not touched the mobile apps for
mobile version of the site as accessed via browser for some time, as to my
knowledge none of them support the use of HTTPS instead of plain HTTP yet)

~~~
jonknee
It definitely takes all of your contacts.

<http://mashable.com/2011/08/11/facebook-phone-numbers/>

"When you download Facebook’s mobile app, this feature syncs your phone’s
address book with your profile. From then on you can access all of the numbers
in your phone from your Facebook profile."

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darklajid
The issue is not new(s).

Showing a screenshot with lots of phone numbers that are less distorted than
your average captcha image seems just as bad though..

~~~
hussong
Looks like the author has updated the image now:
[http://www.itworld.com/sites/default/files/numbers_hidden_be...](http://www.itworld.com/sites/default/files/numbers_hidden_better.jpg)

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jivejones
I created a dumby facebook account to get ahold of some friends who dont use
email. After about a week facebook gave me an ultimatum, give them my phone
number or upload a color picture of my drivers license. I decided to say good
bye to facebook.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
What you did is expressly against the terms of use of Facebook. It's for real
people, real businesses, etc.. They were just trying to verify you're a real
person, possibly your account was reported by someone as being fake.

~~~
cbs
>What you did is expressly against the terms of use of Facebook.

Yeah, I think we all know that. It doesn't mean that we're going to agree with
them. Yes they were in "the right" by booting him, but that doesn't make it
any less of a shitty policy.

>It's for real people, real businesses, etc..

Yep, wouldn't want to add any noise to that delicious advertiser signal!

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dbuizert
Not to be a total dick, but I hope that those phone numbers are disconnected
because the smart ass who made the article failed on blurring out the numbers
correctly...

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tlrobinson
I, for one, find the phone number integration in the mobile app (iPhone) to be
very useful.

But my privacy settings are very restrictive, and I only friend people I've
met.

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anymoonus
[http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/the-
facebook-...](http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/the-facebook-
scare-that-wasnt/)

------
mrspeaker
A friend pointed this out to me this morning. When I opted out here:
[http://www.facebook.com/contact_importer/remove_uplo​ads.php...](http://www.facebook.com/contact_importer/remove_uplo​ads.php?r=%2Fphonebook)
it said for the iphone app: "Note: Before you click Remove, you need to make
sure syncing is switched off." Though, it was already switched off. Ah, good
times, good times...

~~~
gaius
What's annoying is that if you disable it, it also disables syncing the other
way, so you don't get photos automagically in your contacts.

~~~
prostoalex
How would you get those photos without sending in a phone number?

~~~
gaius
Facebook syncing contact photos down to my phone doesn't need to imply my
phone sending phone numbers back in return - these two things are just
conflated in the app.

~~~
prostoalex
How would they know which photo to send you?

~~~
gaius
Because I've linked the two contacts, obviously. But that's on the handset.
There's no reason that sending photos to me implies sending phone numbers back
in return.

~~~
prostoalex
This process implies

1) downloading all friends' profile pics from Facebook

2) manually going through each contact and linking them to proper Facebook
identity

3) repeating the process every now and then for people who change their phone
numbers, change profile pics, or just weren't in the contacts list since they
haven't called before

Shouldn't be too hard to build such app with existing Facebook API.

~~~
kingsley_20
"Shouldn't be too hard to build such app with existing Facebook API."

But not with the current T&C. Developers can access friends' photos, but
cannot store them. Even relationships between users can only be cached for a
modest period of time, not stored.

~~~
prostoalex
I believe profile pics have a different treatment than photos (privacy on
photos is dynamic and can be revoked, while on profile pics it's public) and
together with friend lists are considered part of user data.

<http://developers.facebook.com/docs/best-practices/> "You can cache user data
indefinitely, but we strongly recommend you use the Realtime API to keep user
data current."

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dfxm12
There's a lot going on here. Facebook reports to be a social networking site.
As such, one might expect to exchange contact info with someone they meet on
the site. Of course, this means Facebook actually has to store it. That's
fine.

The problem is that Facebook has insecure defaults. It is reasonable for a
person to assume that contact information would only be visible to their
"friends" (whether or not they are accepting random people as friends is
another issue). Facebook should make it painfully clear that this isn't the
case, and give its users more robust tools to control their data.

Of course, even if this does happen (which it won't, because it is in
Facebook's every interest to keep as much of your info public as they can),
some users will _still_ leave their contact info public and wonder why they
get calls from strangers...

Remember when you learned how to write checks in the third grade? I think it
is time to prepare kids for controlling their online identity formally...

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dbingham
I don't see anyone in my contacts list who I'm not friended with and who isn't
already sharing their number in their profile in a way I can see it. Maybe he
just hit a bug in the list?

~~~
polynomial
This was/is a widely reported "bug" (since early last year) and is actually
the main problem. If I have you in my phone's address book, and you are not on
Facebook, how is it I can give permission for your phone number to be uploaded
to their servers?

This was changed in updates to the app, however the fallout continues to rain
down.

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Jun8
If you have one, using your Google voice number is perfect just for cases such
as these.

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fedorabbit
someone who is stupid enough to put his/her phone number on Facebook deserve
to be pwned

