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Comment by roblabla | Hacker News Reader

I have a facebook account, but I haven't even logged in in the mast few years. Recently (like a week ago), I started receiving text messages on the number i had setup, after constant nagging by fb about security, looking like this :

Robin, get back on Facebook by clicking: https://fb.com/l/someIDhere

I am OUTRAGED by this. My phone text messages is one of the only communication medium that has no spam, and i basically use it for urgent stuff. I never agreed to fb using it for anything further than 2fa. If it wants to spam me, it may send emails.

This was basically the last straw for me. I'm going to send a message to all my friends telling them to send a mail if they want to contact me, delete everything on my profile and wall, and bid farewell. My account will stay up mostly to keep scammers/impostors at bay.

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This happened to me with Instagram (which I stopped using after they killed the chronological feed). I'm almost certain I never gave my number to Instagram. I used it to confirm something with Facebook at some point apparently, but I don't recall giving it to them and I can't imagine myself consenting to phone notifications. At one point they sent me a message at 2am local time on a Sunday.

You are in luck!

At one point in time, text messages were extremely expensive (several cents per message, depending on the plan you had). At that time, laws were passed (in many countries, I don't know where you are) that made it illegal to send unsolicited text messages.

You should see if you can scare Facebook.

I don't know of many countries outside the US where you had to pay for receiving texts or calls.

Most everywhere the cost was always borne by the sender (except when roaming)

Even roaming, it is free to receive SMSes for my plan and most plans in Australia.

If you need to receive an 2FA token, well, you need to receive an 2FA token.

Yes, I failed to mention the roaming exception was for calls only.

Since this summer, roaming charges are also banned altogether within the EU.

Not 100% right as some companies in EU member countries such as Finland, where I'm from, were allowed to use a certain clause that would allow them to still add roaming charges (mostly data related). This is done because the majority of operators sell contracts based on the speed and not a monthly GB cap. Almost all contracts are unlimited in data. I for one have a ~30€/month contract that has unlimited data with 50Mbps down / 30Mbps up.

After the roaming change my contract includes ~6GB of roaming data within EU. When that's reached there is a 0.0057€ per MB price in data abroad.

> You should see if you can scare Facebook.

In all honesty, you really can't.

This is legally not "unsolicited", at least in my jurisdiction.

To be unsolicited, you must not have had previous business contact with the company before they contacted you. If you have a business relationship with the company, for example because you opened an account and gave them your phone number, then these laws do not apply.

I use Google Voice for 2FA. It kind of defeats the purpose of 2FA, but it ensures that all the spam stays in my inbox, and lets me change phone numbers when I change country without causing problems.

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