Facebook phone app editing saved email addresses

[TronPaul]

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL
Gonna slurp you good... bitch

Facebook has found an innovative way to encourage use of its email service: reach into users' mobile phone address books and change the email addresses stored against each contact to their Facebook email account.

It has emerged that Facebook's war on competing services now extends beyond the manipulated Timeline and into punters' pockets. The social network's mobile app appears to be altering address book entries to direct messages to Facebook mail accounts. A user composing an email on his or her phone will send the missive to a Facebook inbox the recipient has probably never looked at, and as the original email address is overwritten there's no alternative.

According to reports, address books on iOS and Android devices are being updated by the Facebook app whenever there's an entry in the address book linked to a Facebook account. In some cases it seems the @facebook.com address is being appended to the contact details, but other users are reporting that it's being overwritten too.

Some punters, such as Sam Bibble, found new and separate entries for each of his Facebook contacts, leading to duplication - but at least he didn't lose the original email addresses.

There are also reports of email messages disappearing entirely - but Facebook tells us that such messages have probably ended up filed in the "Other" category which becomes available when one clicks on "Messages" at the left of one's Facebook home. That doesn't alter the fact that data on users' handsets (their friends' preferred email addresses) has been deleted without warning.

Facebook tells us its engineers are looking into it, and they'll let us have more details when they come in. We've had no reports of UK users suffering the same plight, but it might be wise to remove the Facebook app for a while anyway, just until the situation becomes clear. ®

[Executor32]

After hearing about the @Facebook address being forced upon all users, rather than just being an opt-in convenience, somehow I knew some stupid bullshit was going to come of it. I've had no contact issues on my Galaxy Nexus, but then again I'm obviously running ICS, so the Facebook app can't sync with my phone contacts anyway.

[Terralthra]

I'm also on a GNex, running a custom ICS flash that restores Facebook contact sync. No issues here either.

Dick move by Facebook, but is anyone really surprised?

[JLTucker]

After hearing about the @Facebook address being forced upon all users, rather than just being an opt-in convenience, somehow I knew some stupid bullshit was going to come of it. I've had no contact issues on my Galaxy Nexus, but then again I'm obviously running ICS, so the Facebook app can't sync with my phone contacts anyway.

Is this only on the Nexus? I have ICS on my Vivid and I had to disabled syncing because all of my friends who are not on my phone contacts were added.

[Terralthra]

The Galaxy Nexus had Facebook Contact Sync disabled by Google, because Facebook refused to play nice. What looks like Facebook contacts in your Contacts db aren't actually contacts, because the FB app refuses to allow that information to be accessed through standard APIs. Through all of Android 1.6 through 3.0, Google put in an exception that created ghost contacts for FB friends to allow for merging, use of profile pictures, etc.

As a shot across the bow, for their "flagship" ICS phone, Google took out the exception. Unfortunately, they hadn't publicized that they made it in the first place, so most people with Galaxy Nexuses blamed Google for "breaking Facebook contact sync." Most custom ROMs for the Nexus restore the exception, and other ICS phones never had it removed.

For your issue, the FB app has an option (presented on first install, accessible through settings afterward) that sets it to sync all, sync only existing contacts, or sync none. Was existing-contacts-only not working properly?

[JLTucker]

I just didn't like having 50 more contacts with phone numbers and email addresses added to my contact list. I take issue with that because those people likely didn't know it was happening. So, I disabled the syncing to remove them.

[Executor32]

I thought it was gone from stock ICS entirely, not just on the GNex?

[Losonti Tokash]

Man, the facebook app is such a pile of shit anyway. Less functionality than the mobile site, barely works, notifications never pop up. Only reason I still have it on at all is because the phone won't let me get rid of it.

[RogueIce]

I disabled contacts syncing for the reasons mentioned: a bunch of duplicate contacts and such, a lot of it because I don't enter full first and last names most of the time and it seemed dodgy on whether or not it would notice duplicate mobile numbers. Still that was just an options menu thing so whatever.

I deleted the damn app mainly because some update also forced an extra two apps on me, Facebook Messengers and some Camera thing (IIRC, it's been awhile) and when I deleted the "extra" apps it also deleted the Facebook app. I decided this was no big loss, because as Los says the thing sucked compared to just logging on from my phone's browser anyway.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Yet another reason to not update the app, it seems. It's been telling me for months now that a newer version is available but I'm happy with what I've got. And I imagine it's not gonna mess with anything with the old app.