Another step to stop Big Brother controlling you !

Given my field of research which is privacy protection in the ICT sector I feel like I should address one of the important issues that some of you came across these days.

Did you realize that Facebook assigned to you a Facebook email address, i.e. X.X[at]facebook.com !? Did you notice that the displayed email address has changed to Facebook address and the old one, although is still in their database had been hidden?

Some of you may find it a cool idea and another opportunity to communicate with people. On the other hand, the others that are more suspicious about the new feature may dislike it.  One of the considerable disadvantages is that email sent to the Facebook address is forwarded by Facebook to the other one, so it ends up in the same place. Also it is another opportunity to spammers to flood you with unwanted adds.

One is true Facebook (again !) has taken liberty to make a decision on our behalf.  Facebook attempts to become an all-inclusive resort of the Web and primary destination when we go online.. The new email policy could be considered as another ‘nudge’ it gives us to make us spend more time on its site.

So what you have to do ?

You have to go to your profile page, hide the Facebook.com address from your Timeline, and replace it with another address, assuming you want to be contacted at all.

Good luck !