How anyone can message you on Facebook now (whether you want them to or not)



Contributing Writer
Photo: Girl and Dresses Credit: Belovodchenko Anton


In 2010, Facebook rolled out the optional @facebook.com email address, which allowed users to send and receive external emails from their Facebook account.  As of today it is no longer an option AND Facebook has made it the default email setting for all Facebook accounts (you can see detailed instructions on how to change your default email back here).

So what does this mean?

Facebook email addresses are your username + @facebook.com.  This means that even if you have your default settings to private anyone can determine your Facebook email address fairly easily.  For example my username is “jimdougherty” so my Facebook email address is jimdougherty@facebook.com.  Pretty much anyone could conceivably contact me (or you) via this method.  Facebook suggests that you can change your privacy settings to keep your contact information hidden, which at this point is pretty meaningless.

In addition to the increased vulnerability to spam, on my Facebook page emails are delivered to a box entitled “Other,” an offshoot to the “Messages” folder.  This adds a layer of complexity to receiving emails in that there is one more place to look.  I actually lost a piece of business because a guy who heard me speak inexplicably emailed me on Facebook (I gave him my business card so he had my actual email address).

The final point I’ll discuss about this curious move by Facebook is that their email solutions is one of the least robust available.  Think about the flexibility and user experience that Google created with Gmail – Facebook has created the exact opposite.  I assume that it has a spam filter, but the interface and lack of customization options make it a really basic, unappealing option even if you buy into the premise that Facebook could be your primary email provider.!

It will be interesting to understand how this change is greeted.  People seem understandably upset about the privacy issues that this creates.  If Facebook made this transition without having adequate infrastructure to filter most of the spam – the concern for this product and its implementation will sustain for a long period.  Whatever Facebook’s rationale is, it’s clear that there are some massive challenges that they’ll have to solve before anyone will consider @facebook a viable email solution.
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Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Writer about social media and tech at Leaders West, I also tweet as @leaderswest.

[The Glad Scientist] A fun idea… http://t.co/I4ZggKOt4v via @notsalmon – 8 hours ago

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

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  • http://www.wchingya.com Ching Ya

    You brought up a very important issue here which I overlooked – thinking that this is only a simple change to profile’s Contact section. Indeed, now anyone with a username can be contacted easily whether they like it or not. By making the facebook email address a ‘default’, reminding people that anyone is reach-able (and maybe they think it’s ok too, even the person had hidden their ‘Message’ option from public eyes?), this could be another privacy issue on the rise.

  • http://leaderswest.com Jim Dougherty

    Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I’m not sure that Facebook is going to achieve its intended purpose with this, but there are some serious ramifications to a decision like this, especially with how they didn’t communicate it to users.

  • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn | Wonder of Tech

    This move by Facebook seems to be unanimously unpopular. Thanks for spelling it out for us and guiding us on how to change it. I’m wondering if anyone is actually pleased about this change, outside of Facebook, that is.

  • http://www.pure-text.net Lauren @ Pure Text

    Yeah, I don’t plan on using Facebook mail at all for the reasons mentioned here. I’ll stick with Yahoo. However, I wish pages (as opposed to profiles) had a message button. Oh, sigh.

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