Checked your Facebook profile recently?
If not, you may want to check your email address.
That's because Facebook has a present waiting for you. A personalized email address that you didn't even ask for. Add the bonus of hiding your personal email, forcing people to use the new email address which feeds to your Facebook inbox, and you've got a lot of ticked-off users.
(Follow us on Facebook, and we promise to not change your email address)
A few tech hackers are crying foul, accusing Facbook of using the Man in the Middle (MTIM) attack on users. MTIM inserts a third party into private communications allowing access to personal emails and every piece of data you send from the account.
Facebook disagrees with that comparison. According to CNN Money, Facebook says it's all for the sake of Facebook Timeline, the new page design for Facebook.
"We basically defaulted to show your Facebook address as we rolled [Facebook Timeline] out, just to keep it consistent for everyone," said Meredith Chin, Facebook's manager of product communications.
A slew of articles released Monday with names like "Facebook is Trying to Hijack your Email Address" and "Facebook Just Changed your Email Without Asking" tell a different story.
What happens when external email comes to your Facebook.com account
Email sent to your facebook.com address will be routed to your Facebook "Messages" box. If the sender's email address is associated with the account of one of your Facebook friends (or one of their friends), the message will appear in your Inbox and you'll get the typical "talk bubble" notification at the top of the Facebook page.
If, however, Facebook can't match the sender's email address up with someone within two degrees of separation, it gets routed to a more obscure mailbox, "Other Messages," that many Facebook users are not even aware exists. Messages dropped in "Other Messages" do not generate a notification on Facebook. Some of these messages could be spam, but many could be from people whom Facebook doesn't realize are your legitimate contacts.
If you want to give facebook.com email a try, here's Facebook's own summary of how it works and how it looks and behaves differently from the email you're probably used to. This November 2010 LifeHacker article explains why that might not be a good decision for you.
Want your email restored? Follow these simple steps to restore your email and "uninsert" Facebook from your email.
- Go to your contact information, it's in your about section
- Locate your email addresses. If you have an old profile, you will have the option to add/remove email addresses.
- If you have the new profile, click edit. "Hide" your @facebook.com email address and restore your old email address to the "shown" space by switching the circles from crossed out to full circles.
