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Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

techcrunch.com

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Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#51

Post by Taniwha »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #46
Taniwha wrote: post #44

A slightly off-topic question - how the hell do you contact Facebook if you don't have a Facebook account? Someone has registered a Facebook account using my email address (apparently they do no verification at all) and I can't stop the spam ....

Request an new password, and then change the password on the Facebook account. I've done that myself.

well - I did that .... and changed the email address to a dummy account .... and still they send me almost weekly spam to the old address - "Why aren't you using FaceBook? here's a single link you can use to log on without a password" ... these bozos have no concept of security

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#52

Post by wtmt »

snarfy wrote: post #20

Glad I never gave them my number.

You can't be sure that Facebook doesn't have your number unless you have never given your phone number to anyone who uses Facebook and has your name and phone number. They could be friends, co-workers, relatives, delivery people, cab drivers and many other service providers. One of them shares their address book with Facebook and it knows. A few of them share their address books with Facebook and it's reasonably sure what your number is (names can be fuzzy matched to your profile).

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#53

Post by cbzbc »

fpalmans wrote: post #50
cbzbc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can set it to be searchable by friends only, which should avoid recruiters being able to do this, unless they are adding themselves as friends first.

If you set it to searchable by friends only, wouldn't you still show up in the suggestions? Especially if your number is added in someone's cell phone? By the way: I haven't actually used facebook since 2012...

I’m not entirely sure how suggestions work in this context, I would presume that you’d only show up in suggestions to the circle within which you had allowed your number to be searchable, and so ‘friends only’ should prevent being added by phone number.

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#54

Post by Taniwha »

Taniwha wrote: post #51
pfarnsworth wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Request an new password, and then change the password on the Facebook account. I've done that myself.

well - I did that .... and changed the email address to a dummy account .... and still they send me almost weekly spam to the old address - "Why aren't you using FaceBook? here's a single link you can use to log on without a password" ... these bozos have no concept of security

Or rather I should say "these bozos have no concept of their customer's security" .... but I guess we all knew that already

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#55

Post by arcturus17 »

on_and_off wrote: post #34
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #14

This will make keeping your social media private during recruiting much much harder because rather than trying to search for your name on FB or your email, an interviewer can just search your listed contact number. Names are often not unique but phone numbers are. This matters because creating a new email account for recruiting is trivial, yet creating a new phone number for recruiting is not. Most phones are not dua…

There are also a non negligible number of people using an alias on facebook because they have good reason. Apparently when a woman uses a pseudonym on facebook, it is not unlikely that it is because of a nasty/stalkerish ex that she would rather get away from. I am actually in favor of a transparent society (a la david brin) , but we have to grown up a lot and handle such cases before the advantages that come with it…

> in favor of a transparent society

I suggest you read The Transparent Society by Byung-Chul Han. It’s a brutal 50-page indictment of the hypercult of transparency and its effects on the human soul, on the political discourse, and on traditional values like truth and beauty. Might change your view on the costs of transparency.

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#56

Post by skybrian »

Lewton wrote: post #48

I refused the 2FA nag on Facebook because I didn’t want them to have my phone number Then after a while the nag started popping up with my phone number already filled out. Really fucking creepy and not okay.

For what it's worth, I just deleted my phone number and added Google Authenticator, and it seemed to work fine.

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#57

Post by wtmt »

Ok, so Facebook has yet another appalling practice that's been known for quite sometime (see the Telegraph article linked in this one). The percentage of users boycotting the company and its products don't seem to materially matter. Facebook is making more money now than before. Facebook will not behave well on its own. Regulation and really hefty fines running into a low double digit percentage of revenue (not profits) are the answers!

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#58

Post by gotocake »

willio58 wrote: post #18
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #14

This will make keeping your social media private during recruiting much much harder because rather than trying to search for your name on FB or your email, an interviewer can just search your listed contact number. Names are often not unique but phone numbers are. This matters because creating a new email account for recruiting is trivial, yet creating a new phone number for recruiting is not. Most phones are not dua…

So get off public social networks. Problem solved.

I realize that you’re getting slammed for a pat, trite, or unhelpful answer to a complex problem, but it also happens to be the only answer. It’s an answer with real consequences, but when weighed against giving your privacy over to FB what else is to be done right now?

Public social networks are poison, they’re inimical to privacy, and we need to get off of any that harvest personal information. Telling people to “quit FB (and other similar services)” may come off wrong, but for a long time so did “quit smoking.” I get it, I’d love to have cigarettes that are healthy and delicious, but until then... quit smoking. Maybe someday public social media will be safe and sane, but until then... quit.

Re: Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting

#59

Post by [deleted] »

wtmt wrote: post #57

Ok, so Facebook has yet another appalling practice that's been known for quite sometime (see the Telegraph article linked in this one). The percentage of users boycotting the company and its products don't seem to materially matter. Facebook is making more money now than before. Facebook will not behave well on its own. Regulation and really hefty fines running into a low double digit percentage of revenue (not profi…

[deleted]
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