21–30 of 182 posts
What's a shadow profile? Sounds so sinister. It's probably just a line in a database with your email address and phone number. It's not like Facebook is actively keeping tabs on people that don't have accounts.
What's a shadow profile? Sounds so sinister. It's probably just a line in a database with your email address and phone number. It's not like Facebook is actively keeping tabs on people that don't have accounts.
I actually got a peek at Facebook's behavior maybe 5 years ago when I signed up to beta-test a video game. They had used the Facebook login API for their beta forums without marking it on their site, so signing up for the game signed me up for Facebook. Suddenly all the Facebook ads everywhere knew my name. Three weeks and about 40 emails to "update my Facebook profile" that I reported to Gmail as phishing later, I r…
When I signed up for LinkedIn, I put in my name and "work" email address and straight away, without me having provided any other piece of information it was suggesting people I may know. It was not possible that it could have shadow guessed this from my email since those colleagues don't have that one, but both my GMail accounts are linked so I wonder if that was the weak point. Definitely something strange going on and it scared me somewhat...
I should also note that at no point did I use the "find my friends" type feature and give it access to my GMail to mine my contacts either.
Let's think of a typical use case where a "shadow profile" is useful. Let's say my friend Jane is on facebook. She has my phone number on her phone with my first name. Facebook notices that this phone number is not linked to any other accounts, therefore I must not be registered. Fast forward two months, and I decide to sign up for facebook. I put my phone number in (as a form of password recovery I believe) and it a…
No, that's how modern privacy invasion works. After Facebook scanned Jane's phonebook, and made the invites Jane asked, Facebook should have deleted your phone number.
I actually got a peek at Facebook's behavior maybe 5 years ago when I signed up to beta-test a video game. They had used the Facebook login API for their beta forums without marking it on their site, so signing up for the game signed me up for Facebook. Suddenly all the Facebook ads everywhere knew my name. Three weeks and about 40 emails to "update my Facebook profile" that I reported to Gmail as phishing later, I r…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's how modern privacy invasion works. After Facebook scanned Jane's phonebook, and made the invites Jane asked, Facebook should have deleted your phone number.
You are going to be in for a real shock if you ever see a phone book. Pages upon pages of names matched with phone numbers!
What's a shadow profile? Sounds so sinister. It's probably just a line in a database with your email address and phone number. It's not like Facebook is actively keeping tabs on people that don't have accounts.
The profile also probably contains a list of all the Facebook users who had you in their contact lists, and all the photos that you were tagged in. Since such information would get updated every time a Facebook user uploaded your contact information or tagged you, I'd say this qualifies as Facebook actively keeping tabs on you.
Certainly you can "tag" someone if they are not on Facebook and not in your friends (of friends) list, but it is then just tagged as text, not associated with an account... maybe I missed an option somewhere...