Facebook In Sneaky Email Change Shocker!
Some people do bang on about Facebook and privacy – or lack of. Personally I don’t have a problem with it. I am more than happy to trade my so-called privacy in exchange for the free use of their social network, one which has brought me much real word joy, not to mention money.
- We had one of the highest turnouts at our school reunion. How did we find everyone? You bet – Facebook
- I’m in touch with buddies I travelled with on my world trip in 1997/98. We’re all at the same stage in life again, and enjoy sharing baby stories. These are people I have a lot in common with, although we live very different lives all over the world.
- Closer to home, last year, the crew of boys and girls I grew up with and hung out with every summer up to age 17 staged a reunion in Grogans… how did we find each other? Facebook! I also enjoy keeping up with what they’re up to… am I nosy? Hell yes.
Facebook is perfect for people like me. A little bit nosy. A lot extrovert. With a lot of family and friends all over the world. I don’t always have time or wish to email or phone them, but it’s sometimes nice to see what they’re up to via photos or posts. So it is no big skin off my nose that I sacrifice a little bit of me in order to get access to this.
So Facebook sells my data? I don’t think they sell my individual browsing data. I think it’s more of an amalgam of what people like me tend to like or do. They allow advertisers to target me with ads that are relevant to my expressed interests. What’s the problem with that? I only wish the chips and pizza purveyors who continually drop leaflets into my home could be so targeted.
The speaker at last week’s Dublin Pub Summit, underwhelming and boorish though he was, made a big point that there’s money in Privacy. As he talked down to all the bright-eyed entrepreneurs in the room and said that if you’re idea is rooted in social, you may as well forget it, I thought re. the privacy thing – maybe he has a point. (It was the ONLY thing I thought that about). There are lots of people out there who think differently and get all up in arms every time Facebook does something different….
Facebook did yesterday. But interestingly, there was hardly a squeak about it on the wires. What they did was change everyone’s primary email address to be @facebook.com. Obviously they want us to move on over to the FB emails, and instead of earning it like Google did with Gmail (rock solid, lots of storage and features), they decided to just do it. If you check out your Facebook profile now, click on About – and scroll down to the emails, you’ll see that you are now yourname@facebook.com.
How To Reverse The Facebook Email Change
- Click “About” on your profile and scroll down to your email address. Click “Edit” to change them.
- Click on the circle next to your Facebook email address and change its setting to “Hidden From Timeline”.
- Click on the circle next to your other email addresses and change their settings to “Shown On Timeline”.
- Click the Save button at the bottom.
That’s it. Easy. Despite my relaxed attitude outlined above, I did effect this change. I don’t want to let Facebook lose the run of itself or anything. If you look at some of the warnings online, you might too – for soon ‘nefarious criminals’ will be using your email address to make lots of money out of you…. 
You have been warned!