Facebook will soon share users’ phone numbers and addresses with 3rd parties

[onehandle]

Source: Yahoo News

It's been a while since we've had an uproar over Facebook's handling of its users personal information, so we suppose the time is ripe.

So cue the online outrage: Facebook announced today in a letter to Congress that the social-media platform is moving forward with plans to give third parties access to user information, such as phone numbers and home addresses.

In a letter to Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Tex.), who both expressed concerns over Facebook's plan to make such data available, company officials reiterated their now-familiar pledge to leave it up to users to decide whether they want their personal contact information to go out to app developers and outside websites. Markey has previously said that "Facebook needs to protect the personal information of its users to ensure that Facebook doesn't become Phonebook."

The company, meanwhile, sounds as though it has no plans to trim back its information-sharing ambitions.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110301/ts_yblog_thelookout/facebook-will-soon-share-users-phone-numbers-and-addresses-with-3rd-parties

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Onehandle is Facebook free.

[Historic NY]

1. Hey can facebook also be a party to a "do not call list" violation..?

[jp11]

13. Don't know generally if you do business with a company they don't have to

follow the DNC list. How business is defined with something like FB and their 'partners' is questionable, simply being a 'member' might be enough to constitute a business relationship.

More than anything they can simply use that to track people for real with all the other information they mine off people, I doubt the winning market strategy is to make robo calls or automail crap to people's houses.

[RKP5637]

2. I've never used any of the social networking services. DU is the closet I get to

anything. I spent too much time as a geek, the pitfalls of these services like Facebook for abuse is very prevalent.

[ixion]

3. They don't have mine.

I keep a pretty sparse profile.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

8. +1000

[prairierose]

14. me too...n/t

[Turborama]

4. I only use Facebook to keep in touch with family and *real* friends. I don't need to share publicly

any of my private details (DOB, address, phone number etc) as they know them anyway.

[SheilaT]

5. I just went on to my facebook account and

deleted my phone number there.

I am not all that crazy about facebook. It's totally stupid, in my opinion, that when someone who is on my friends list posts something on her page, it shows up on mine. And what friends of friends -- total strangers -- also post shows up. I learn nothing useful. The only reason I haven't closed my account is because it's semi useful. But only semi.

[snagglepuss]

7. I don't use FB though I can see it being useful for certain stuff. I'm curious

how something strangers post somewhere else shows up on your FB and what is the purpose of that?

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. How did they get my number and address?

:shrug:

[Mojorabbit]

10. My cell number showed up on my facebook info page

and I rarely use my cell. I have had it for years and still don't know my cell number by heart so I have no idea how they got it. My hubby just bought me an android so I guess I will be using mine more. I wonder if the linking to facebook friends this phone does for family also gives out my number.

[RufusTFirefly]

9. Gee, whatta shock!! I mean, this private, for-profit company seemed sooo cool!!

Who would've guessed that it would try to use the data of its users to make actual money?

Folks, private companies are not the public space. Facebook provides a textbook definition of why.

Fight to hold onto America's public property. Lands, schools, parks, libraries, streets, Internet, and airwaves. There isn't much of it left.

[trackfan]

11. There's no reason or requirement to have either listed in any way on Facebook.

[1776Forever]

12. That is one more reason I don't do Facebook - even though I have friends & family on it. n/t

[-..__...]

15. So... sign up and put down Walkers phone number...

or the phone number/address of anyone you want to annoy or piss-off.

[AndyTiedye]

16. They Can't "Share" (Sell) What They Don't Have

I'm on facebook, but my address and phone number aren't.

My email address is there, but after 17 years every spammer on the planet already has it.

[JDPriestly]

17. I do not trust Facebook.

I do not think that it is a viable business model.

I think that Facebook will sell or "lose" information to the corporations and governments just to keep its fiscal household in order.

Goldman Sachs wanted to invest in Facebook for a reason -- because the current business model can be perverted to become simply a profitmaking machine.

I am not on Facebook although most of my friends and family are.

[Vinnie From Indy]

18. The Gestapo would have LOVED Facebook!

I have never understood why so many people would so eagerly reveal so much about themselves, their families, friends etc. on Facebook. In other times and in other places, Facebook would have been Nirvana for secret police wishing to compile files on suspects. Now they wouldn't even have to torture a suspect to find out who the person associated with etc. Now they would just have to grab the suspects Facebook account to find out.