I don’t use Facebook, but since a lot of you do and you may not have noticed what Facebook just did to you, now you know. Never say I’m not helpful.
Most of Facebook’s 900 million members probably haven’t noticed yet, but over the weekend the social networking giant changed the default email address of every one of its members’ profiles to an @Facebook.com address that the vast majority of users didn’t even know they had.
What that means is that the email address you had listed as your main contact address (such as a Hotmail, Gmail or Sympatico address) is now hidden to friends who visit your profile page.
In its place, users have been assigned an @Facebook.com address that routes email directly to Facebook Messages.
The change prevents users from using that Hotmail or Gmail address to contact other users outside of Facebook — helping to keep Facebook’s captive audience from drifting off the site.
Facebook made this change without your permission. It did this because it has no regard for you, your wishes or your privacy and security. It does this kind of crap all the time. Is it really worth keeping a service like this in your life for the sake of a few stupid games and the ability to keep tabs on people you wouldn’t ever talk to in real life? Sorry for the rant, but unauthorized changes and user unfriendly defaults and policies are just one of those things with me.
Thankfully, the process to put things back how you want them seems fairly simple in this case, but I’m sure Facebook will mess it up sooner or later.
To go back to your original address, click on the “about” section of your profile. Once there, look for “contact info” and click on the edit icon in the right hand corner. There, you can change who can see your email address and choose to highlight which email address they can see.
Please, just stop using Facebook, everyone. It sucks.