Has Facebook Changed Your Default Email Address?

Whilst reading my various news feeds today, I saw on an Op Ed piece on Mashable (Facebook: The Honey Badger of Social Media) that indicated the default email address I use on Facebook may have been changed from the one I had set, to my new facebook email address – so I checked.

Sure enough, Facebook had changed my email address to the ‘facebook provided’ one – even though I have never approved the use of the address and had set it as public.  Of course, I’ve reset my profile to exactly as I want it to be – but it did annoy me A LOT.  My Facebook profile is fairly well locked down – I don’t share many details and the details I share are normally shared with Friends or Friends of Friends.  So what’s Facebook doing changing my contact details?

In April 2012, Facebook announced that they would be updating addresses to be more consistent across the platform, but in no way where they explicit that they would be modifying your profile to change your default email address…. according to Mashable, Facebook’s response is that we (as users) should be paying more attention.

Given these changes, it’s now timely to go and review your Facebook privacy settings and make sure you’re only showing what you want to the public, friends of friends and friends…. I would also advocate ensuring that you don’t have more information than you absolutely need to have on Facebook – just in case they decide to change your settings without telling you.

Make sure you weigh in on this discussion – has your profile been changed?  Do you look down your settings so they aren’t shared with all and sundry? How do you feel about Facebook messing with your settings?