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

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61–70 of 261 posts

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

#61

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…

My GF uses a google voice number (and separate gmail accounts) for job search purposes both for this reason and because she can nuke the phone number later, cutting off headhunters once she'd found something she likes.

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

#62

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…

> yet creating a new phone number for recruiting is not Doesn't Google Voice solve this problem? Or perhaps there are restrictions I don't know about. Of course, you still have to remember to create a burner phone number before giving out your contact info...

At least in canada with the national do not call list, I’ve found I receive very few robo calls. For those I do if I wait to talk to a real person and then press as too who is calling me so I can file a report they hang up quick and I don’t hear back.

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

#63
post #51

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

Sounds like what has been happening to me. Except when I try to login to nuke the thing I get some error message about a database error and can't login. So the Facebook spam about new friend suggestions etc keeps coming. But since I have always marked it as spam it usually goes straight to the spam box.

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

#64

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…

> yet creating a new phone number for recruiting is not Doesn't Google Voice solve this problem? Or perhaps there are restrictions I don't know about. Of course, you still have to remember to create a burner phone number before giving out your contact info...

We don't have Google Voice in Australia.

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

#65
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry someone in your circle of friends already handed it over.

Exactly. It takes just one person who knows your phone number to upload their entire contact list and it's saved. The likelihood that Facebook doesn't have your phone number and name is 0% unless you don't have a phone number.

Can’t understand the downvote as im thinking the same Anyone care to explain if it’s wrong how and/or why ?

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

#66
Isn’t it the same for Twitter? I tried recently to create a second account, it’s now impossible to do so without specifying a phone number during signup. And the mobile application was trying to access my contact list, which seems to be used to suggest people to follow by looking for their phone number (see https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/upload-your-contac...).

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

#67
post #60
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how I can tell that you didn't read the article?

Deleting one's account does appear to be a mitigation

These constant articles are like watching someone stick their hand on a hot stove and complain over and over that it hurts. But try suggesting they take their hand off the burner and nope, freak outs and/or insults.

It really is an option. It really is the best option. It isn't flippant or sarcasm.

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

#68

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…

> yet creating a new phone number for recruiting is not Doesn't Google Voice solve this problem? Or perhaps there are restrictions I don't know about. Of course, you still have to remember to create a burner phone number before giving out your contact info...

Only for US and Canada.

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

#70
post #5

I've designed an OSINT system with this specific feature in mind (it's on github since a few months). Basically being able to go from phonenumber->accounts is very powerful and works even more efficiently to identify a person than an email address or even a real name. The abuse potential of this is far greater than some people assume.

Plus you can look up the phone provider which probably makes banning spam accounts a lot more easy.
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