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Comment by Alterlife | Hacker News Reader

There are three discussions about this on the front page :-/ .

I think this is just might be one of those things which would ticks us off as techies... but techies are the minority audience for sites like facebook.

Do emails sent to the facebook id go to the standard facebook 'message system'? If so, for a majority of people this will probably make sense... want to message somebody on facebook? You don't have to login to facebook! Email them at xyz@facebook.com. I didn't know you could do that, pretty sure a lot of other people didn't either. Now a lot of folks probably are updated about this feature.

In addition: non-techies who have accidentally exposed their private email id's will now have their facebook id's scraped instead... and the ones who exposed their private emails intentionally will change it back anyway.

However, all said and done... it could have been done differently.

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> If so, for a majority of people this will probably make sense... want to message somebody on facebook? You don't have to login to facebook! Email them at xyz@facebook.com.

There are easy ways to advertise this fact, without changing anyone's personal info in their Facebook account. It could be as simple as adding the text "You can also send messages to JaneDoe@facebook.com" to JaneDoe's profile page.

I do agree - it could have (and possibly should have) been done differently. I was trying rationalize facebook's action. It's a hugely successful company run by people smarter than I.

"run by people smarter than I"

Don't bet on that!

In 99% of cases, ppl didn't reveal their private email address. NOW, people can infer your facebook email address from your facebook id... thus making spamming you much more likely. Facebook IDs are public, right?

You can argue people can already mass-message people, but now it's easier.

If you compose an email to multiple @facebook.com addresses, I'm sure Facebook will limit the actual number of recipients in the same way that they do when you send messages through the Facebook message interface, so it's really no different.

With 3rd party spam, the advantage Facebook has here is Zuck's "social graph" -- they can pretty easily tell what the relationship of the sender is in relation to the recipient (and thus how relevant the message is, what the sender's reputation is, etc). It'd be interesting to see how these connections are made when the sender's email address is not associated with a Facebook account, though.

yep, that's what I was getting into. It seems FB wants users to use their facebook email as their regular email address. So it would make sense if they get emails from newsletters, online bills, strangers, anyone...

Plus they get an added bonus of people who have already stopped logging in, plus those who quit based on this move, having an fb.com email for posterity unless they login one last time and chnage it.

It'd be interesting to see how these connections are made when the sender's email address is not associated with a Facebook account, though.

You think FB isn't in (or aspiring to) negotiations with ConstantContact, CampaignMOnitor, MailChimp, etc.? Triangulating preferences, deep dives, data warehousing, you name it.

I've never heard so many complaints from non-tech people I know who are friends on Facebook than from this.

I dunno, the first I heard it from was from non techies. As a techie, I don't really care as I don't keep the account connected to a primary email nor do i use it in my main browser...but to a non-techie, this all but makes it sound like that Facebook is aggressively entering their personal domain...even though it's highly naive to think that what goes on in FB stays on FB, this should be alarming to those who were deluded

I think this is just might be one of those things which would ticks us off as techies..

Local tabloids are discussing this. One their front-page. At least here in Norway. It's not just techies who cares.

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