Facebook Security Concerns
I logged into Facebook today and I saw a new person under “People You May Know.” This person is someone I know from refereeing hockey here in Arizona. It turns out that I only have one person on my friends list who I know happens to be an ice hockey referee, someone I know from not only refereeing but also playing hockey, more than 10 years ago. When I clicked on Jeff’s profile (the new person Facebook suggested), I saw he only had two friends – his is a very new profile!
Jeff and I haven’t ever emailed back and forth directly. I’ve sent a couple email blasts, and he probably has as well. But that’s the extent of it.
My best conclusion is that Jeff allowed the Facebook friend-finder application to have access to his email. Because I’m on the same refereeing email distribution list as Jeff, I can only assume that Facebook has looked at his email and decided to inform me that I might know Jeff.
I do appreciate the flexibility of Facebook’s find-a-friend tool. But for it to be telling me that Jeff might be my friend based on data he provided seems to be a mild form of information leaking.
I’m only hoping that he provided his information to the Facebook friend finder tool. I never did. And if he didn’t, well, now I’m concerned that Google and Facebook have been sharing that kind of information anyway…
