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

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41–50 of 261 posts

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

#41
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just delete the phone number. I'd be surprised if Facebook ever deletes anything like this voluntarily. Most likely "deleting the number" just means hiding it and using it only of ad targeting and more subtle forms of profile matching.

They do in GDPR jurisdictions or they’re fucked.

Assuming it is proven

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

#42
post #30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't Google Voice solve this problem? Or perhaps there are restrictions I don't know about. Only sort of. I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook rejects Google Voices numbers and will only accept a real-live carrier numbers. It seems pretty easy to do, given how often my GV is rejected by sleezy services I'd like to give a throwaway (e.g. peoplesearch opt-outs). However, I'm not going to personally test this theory…

Even if FB was not allowing Google Voice, you could give FB the real number and give throwaway GB numbers to recruiters. That would solve the issue voiced by OP

I imagine most people would have no idea their profiles could be searched via phone number. I didn't know until today.

If it never occurred to you that this could happen, you would not take steps to prevent it.

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

#43

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…

We had a million years to grow up, I don't think we'll ever get there (without drastic measures a la 1984, if you wish)

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

#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 ....

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

#45

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…

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.

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

#46
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.

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

#47
post #22
post #20

Glad I never gave them my number.

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.

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

#49
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.

Same here. I put my phone number in my Facebook profile when I first made it years ago and have since "removed" it. However, I'm pretty sure removing it does literally nothing because it will still pre-fill my phone number in that case and I'd bet money that advertisers targeting by phone number. Still, they're constantly nagging me to re-add it.

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

#50
post #45

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…

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...

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