I never use Facebook on my phone so you can hopefully rule out contact list networks - not that I ever had their personal mobile on my list - and location tracking because I haven't attended my doctor's surgery in years. We have zero friends in common. Other than my doctor actively looking me up on Facebook - highly unlikely - how on earth is this possible? I'm willing to accept friends of friends suggestions but this is beyond spooky.
Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
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Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#2Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#3Either you have searched you doctor, or your doctor has searched you.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#4I had something similar happen with an odd friend. I discovered that I shared my address book with the messenger app. With gmail auto-adding contacts, you might have been linked that way.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#5I had a surgical procedure done at the beginning of the year. I hadn't explicitly shared this information at any point online or visited any websites related to the surgery. A few days after visiting the hospital for some tests, Google AdSense was showing me ads for surgeons at that specific hospital.
I'm not sure who I was most disappointed in. The hospital for purchasing the ad, Google for tracking my hospital visits, or myself for trading privacy for the convenience of services like Google Now.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#6How many other people in their recommendations list do you either not know at all, or only know of them, but have never met? Whatever algorithms they use to produce these recommendations (your social graph, IP addresses in common, etc) will of course wind up surfacing a broad range of people, including some back you actually know.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#7Factors that contribute to friend suggestions on FB:
1. Facebook tracking pixels on websites (if you visit a website with the pixel, you can be targeted in many different ways).
2. Email. If you have sent or received an email to the doctor, and either of you has associated that email to FB, you can be tracked.
3. Searching on FB, you say its unlikely for him to look you up on FB, yet theres always a chance that being a family doctor, he might have at some point seen one of your family member's FB and stumbled upon a picture or post in which you were tagged.
4. Whatsapp Contacts. As you know, Whatsapp and FB are part of the same company, hence have access to linked information. If you share certain Whatsapp contacts, a connection can be inferred.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#8The problem with all of these mobile apps is you just need ONE of your contacts to upload your information, and then you're fucked. That's why I've given up trying to hide my details because they already have it. The idea that all 100% of my contacts respect my privacy is ridiculous unfortunately.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#9Factors that contribute to friend suggestions on FB: 1. Facebook tracking pixels on websites (if you visit a website with the pixel, you can be targeted in many different ways). 2. Email. If you have sent or received an email to the doctor, and either of you has associated that email to FB, you can be tracked. 3. Searching on FB, you say its unlikely for him to look you up on FB, yet theres always a chance that being…
Also it might be relevant that FB buys third party data:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-data-brokers-2016-12
It wouldn't surprise me if a credit card payment for a doctor visit might lead to such an association or suggestion.
Re: Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion?
#10Either you have searched you doctor, or your doctor has searched you.
I believe this is the correct answer, it happened to me as well. I got friend suggestion for my daughter speech therapist, and all our communication and appointments were done only in paper form. But I searched her name on FB out of curiosity. :-)
OP: Can you exclude the possibility that the doctor just searched your name on FB? Why wouldnt he do that...?