Facebook folks - please don't invite

[dreamshark]

Apparently Facebook has some way of coaxing its flock to give up the private email addresses of their friends, even friends who are not on Facebook. I'm not sure how they talk you into doing this, but please don't do it.  It causes Facebook spam to go out to people who do not belong to Facebook urging them to join so they can be so-and-so's friend.

There is something innately creepy about this service, IMHO. I want nothing to do with it. If you have put me on a list of potential Facebook friends, please take me off. Thanks.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yep, same as LJ, flickr, twitter, and everybody else. Oh, and paypal, and ebay.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I don't recall LJ ever asking me for information about people that aren't on LJ. Or people that are, for that matter.

Paypal and Ebay do sometimes have to know email addresses in order to conduct business, but as far as I know it is always a mutually agreed upon transaction where each participant provides their own contact info.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

If you're not paying attention, it is pretty easy to spam a lot of people you e-mail from Facebook, since most of their retarded apps ask for you to send invites to friends every time you use them. Irritating. Fortunately, you and I only deal with each other through LJ. ;)

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Fuck.

My apologies. I'll bet I know what it is.

I suspect that it is the "feature" that claims to provide the useful service of going through your address book and find people who are ALREADY ON Facebook.

Facebook really, really blows. The good bits of it even suck.

There are people that I had lost contact with that I am very pleased to have re-established communication with.

The actual forum in which to communicate with them is sort of like LJ, but considerably suckier. "We've found your long lost grandmother that you thought died in the war! Here have a tin can with some string and say hello to her."

I was probably at least one culprit and I am really sorry about that. If the application had claimed that it would send non-facebook people a bit o' spam, I wouldn't have used it. I do know better than to trust their shitty apps, but there you go.

[carbonel]

That turns out not to be the case, at least for LJ, PayPal, and eBay, and probably the others you list. Facebook has a particularly obnoxious behavior that none of the others do that involves going through your address book in the guise of being helpful.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that "option" under "find friends" that suggested I open up my email address book to them so they could "help" me "find" friends and gave FB the virtual finger. People must be awfully gullible to open up their address book to anyone, ever. Period. P.T. Barnum would be proud.

I got fooled one time by FB when I got a message that I should "pre-friend" Geri because she was "about to join" FB. Do. Not. Click. On. Anything. Don't touch the cold iron and don't eat or drink anything there either.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Facebook really, really blows. The good bits of it even suck.

The sad part of it is that it seems to be the best/most popular social networking ware out there.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Please explain.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

You are not wrong.

[carbonel]

I was talking about the thing that mle292 described below. I've never encountered any other network that did anything like that.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

And I'm supposed to like that?

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Part of why I trusted it was because it was provided directly by Facebook, it wasn't a third party app - which I understand now means nothing.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm only saying that it was easy to be fooled.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I'd rather be eaten by your new baby turtle than do something like that.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

No, I think it's to some extent a reasonable complaint. On the other hand I think it's to some extent reasonable to invite your friends to participate in something you enjoy. The balance, and which friends, is where good vs. bad behavior lies. (I've avoided doing any of that sort of invite myself, so far as I remember.)

I did think it worth pointing out that it's not as uniquely a Facebookian institution as it sounds here.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Facebook makes it easier to do, and do in greater bulk. But they all encourage inviting people; I've received the invites.

[carbonel]

They all encourage it, but only Facebook AFAIK offers to "help" you in one manner while sneakily rifling through your address book to do something entirely different that the member is unaware of.

By tarring them all with the same brush, you minimize the obnoxiousness of Facebook's actions.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. People are awfully gullible.

K.