Ask HN: Is it possible that FB and Google are sharing user data?

1 pointsjonyt11y ago4 comments

Paging through my friend suggestions on Facebook today I saw many familiar faces. I corresponded with all of them on GMail but we never had contact on Facebook. We have no mutual friends, I've never looked at their profiles, I'm pretty sure some of them don't even know my real name so they couldn't have looked at mine. I never gave FB access to my GMail account so I'm struggling to understand how this could be. I realize that network analysis can sometimes be effective but this looks a little too good to be true.

Any ideas?

4 comments

4 comments · 3 top-level

lkbm11y ago· 1 in thread

It's also possible your contacts gave Facebook access to their contact list.

jonytOP11y ago

Is this access offline? Because some of the friend suggestions are from pretty recent contacts. So if the access is not offline they'd have had to email me and only then give FB access.

MichaelCrawford11y ago

I expect this is the case. Just yesterday I received an email at my gmail account that suggested I might know someone with whom I am already connected on Google+.

Perhaps Google is giving up on Google+, and trying to cut its losses by selling out to facebook.

I've been meaning to set up my own mail server for a while, specifically to avoid being tracked by Google. I guess I'll make that more of a priority.

jonytOP11y ago

Actually, I was being stupid. I just realized how they do it. The FB app has access to the contacts of every person who has me in their contact list. So basically without me ever giving them the info they know everyone I ever spoke to on the phone.

It's a brave new world.

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