Facebook “Steals” Phone Contact List

And in my case, they stole voicemail passwords, too! OK, so maybe “steals” isn’t 100% accurate. We probably agreed to let Facebook do this when installing the app or clicking “Agree” for a software update. But this one definitely caught me off guard.

I saw a couple of status updates yesterday claiming “FACEBOOK HAS ALL OF YOUR CONTACT PHONE NUMBERS — EVEN THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON FACEBOOK”. I initially dismissed these as I normally do (thinking people were over-alarmist and had been duped by another status-update scam). Late in the day, though, I tried to disprove them by going through the motions, and, uhhhh… THEY WERE RIGHT! I was shocked.

Did you install a facebook app on your iPhone or Android device? From the standard web interface, click on Facebook’s “Account -> Edit Friends” menu entry. Then select “Contacts” from the far left-hand side of the page. I was quite surprised when I did this. There it was, staring back at me. *ALL* of the contact information from my smart phone.

Is this a big deal? Maybe not for some people. It is for me, though, since my contact list contains speed-dial entries with voicemail passwords. Facebook downloaded all of that. You would think Facebook would realize people might react strongly to this, and give us a major “heads up” before just doing it quietly behind the scenes.

I guess not.

Care to join me on Google+ yet?