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Comment by zerohp | Hacker News Reader

I don't think its overstating the situation to say: Facebook changes profiles without permission or notification.

<TinfoilHat> Who owns the online "you?"</TinfoilHat>

But to be fair, they've said everyone with a Facebook username gets username@facebook.com. You can visit a profile, look at the URL, and put 2 and 2 together. It'd be worse if it was a randomized, private email address that was made public.

The important aspect of the change is they hid peoples' non-facebook e-mail addresses.

Unless I'm trying to run a business, I almost always prefer this kind of error to the opposite.

It's one thing to just hide a piece of information a user asked you to publish on their behalf. It's another to remove it, and then replace it with a nearly identical element because it's preferable to you from a business perspective.

The latter is why folks are upset; simply hiding all listed emails, or adding in the @facebook emails on profiles, would probably not have generated as many complaints.

I have a username and my e-mail was changed to [7 digit integer]@facebook.com

So, no, not exactly.

True, but there is a fine line. You cannot reasonably move a product forward if a few select people refuse to play along. Every product I release, I'm met with disdain from users that don't want to change, and how it was perfect the way it was. And the next release with a different change, it's the same users complaining how the version that they're using now is perfect, why would I change things?

People love to complain, and people don't like change.

There is no fine line here. Facebook changed a personal attribute of their users. This particular action is not justifiable under any circumstances I can see.

They're ethically obligated to hide infomation users don't want released, but are they really expected to publish everything their users ask to make public? It's annoying, but it doesn't spur anything like the moral outrage I would feel if they publicized your hidden addresses. At worst its a minor inconvenience.

It's less about convenience and more about assuming the ability to modify a primary attribute of one's online identity without advance notice.

People will sit back, be quiet, and move along and Facebook will progressively march forward with the invasion and the general populace will scream about it until it's too late.

Are you really flying the flag of Facebook's ethical obligations toward the benefit of their users?

The only justification i can see is that it's facebook, and this is pretty much the sort of behaviour i expect from facebook. i have a hard time getting outraged over behaviour that is totally in character.

Just wait until Zuck starts getting hired by the White House.

Explanations are not justifications.

I'm not aware of a definition of reasonableness that hinges on the behavior of just "a few select people." To wit: if 100% participation is required, it's not reasonable.

Although I disagree with the comment, why is this comment downvoted?

Aren't people allowed to voice opinions anymore? Specially when those opinions are shared with some post-IPO companies?

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