(Image Source: CNN Money )

BY MATTHEW PICHT

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

 

Pop quiz: What email address is your Facebook profile displaying? Your Gmail, Hotmail, maybe even your Yahoo account? HLN reports, the actual answer might surprise you.

“Well, now it’s going to be – or maybe it already is – your name @facebook.com! They are just switching people up as the default. If you don’t want it, you have to go in and change it back. Many people are annoyed.”

A few weeks ago, Facebook started changing the email display on people’s profiles, swapping out personal email accounts for a facebook.com equivalent. The backlash began when tech blogger Gervase Markham wrote an indignant post , equating Facebook’s email switch to digital eavesdropping.

“Facebook silently inserted themselves into the path of formerly-direct unencrypted communications from people who want to email me. In other contexts, this is known as a Man In The Middle (MITM) attack. What on earth do they think they are playing at?”

Now, many tech bloggers are growing outraged at what Forbes writer Kashmir Hill calls “a lame attempt to force Facebook’s email service” onto patrons.


“After all, it should be up to Facebook users to determine the information in their profile about how they want to be contacted, not Facebook. I hope they don’t start taking other liberties with my profile page, changing my interests, hobbies, and ‘in a relationship with’ to ‘Facebook. Only Facebook.’”

But Silicon Valley exec Harry Lin told the Daily Beast , consumers should expect these tactics from Facebook by now.

“There’s an old saying [about] the Internet that if the service you’re using is free, you’re not the consumer, you’re the product...You are in no way obligated to use this free service. So if you use it, you must know that in some way you’re being sold.”

The good news? Facebook still has the old email addresses stored, and people can choose which addresses are displayed. Many sites, including Lifehacker , are now posting instructions on how to reverse the change.

“So click this button on the right, and choose ‘Shown on Timeline’ from the dropdown menu to put those email addresses back. If you want to hide your facebook.com email address, you can do that to.”  

Facebook defended the move by pointing to an April press release stating the company would be updating personal addresses to make the site more “consistent.”