Facebook

[thegrandepoobah]

The facebook suggestions creep me out a little. Anytime I've looked at it, almost everyone that it suggests I do actually know. The weird thing is one of the suggestions today. I don't recognize this girl's name, but the face in the profile picture is quite familiar, I think I've seen her at a con recently. Weird thing is, after clicking on the

Comments

[stillvisions]

I've had one or two like that, but a little digging suggests that it might come from people using their email accounts to find people. Facebook used to let (I assume it still does) you import your address books, and any email address they have in the in or outbox and whatnot could be added to a suggested list. So if they happen to have been on a mailing list with you your name might show up in their suggest, and vice-versa.

Had that before when someone I barely knew showed up and realized six years ago there was at least one email sent to my facebook email address, and that's all it needs to tie you together.

[thegrandepoobah]

Yeah, I was thinking it was probably something along those lines. Was also thinking facebook may be looking at people they've requested to add but haven't gotten confirmation from yet (it looks to be a new account).

Still a little weird.

[flying_squirrel]

Yeah. I was a bit weirded out when Randal Milholland, the guy who does Something Positive showed up as a suggested friend. I mean, I read his comic, but we don't exactly run in the same social circles...

But then I remembered we exchanged a couple emails years ago about a t-shirt order that went wrong. I never import my contacts, but he must have.

[luckee_cookie]

I had a friend who speculated the possiblity of Facebook suggesting people that look at your profile often enough to make it to the list... unfortunetly I can't back this up and my friend is the horribly paranoid type who's going to be doing a Ph.D related to internet security systems...

[thegrandepoobah]

I wouldn't discount that theory completely, but I think logging that and then looking at the data would be more trouble than it was worth.

Off topic: did you get your coat/sweatshirt back yet? I sent them off to Waterloo with people on Sunday after Ad Astra.

[yavarice]

Magic connection algorithms - once again I'm haunted by just how much valuable data the Facebook servers hold.

[seedofdarkness]

Speaking of adding people, I added you to lj if thats ok with you :3
It's Steph from PAX