You've Got E-Mail Address Changes

Or, "Zuckerberg Unbound."

Facebook is at it again.  In 2010, the social networking site started giving users e-mail addresses they could use to communicate with other people, likely people outside as well as inside their Facebook network.  But when it turned out that Facebook customers were quite happy with their old Comcast, Yahoo, AOL, and Google e-mail addresses - and made such e-mail addresses their primary e-mail addresses on their Facebook pages - Facebook began setting their unused, unwanted Facebook e-mail addresses as their primary e-mail addresses (me included) without anyone's permission, consent or knowledge.  It's Facebook's way of making you more dependent its service and making contact information consistent for everyone - consistent with the way Mark Zuckerberg wants it.

The history of commerce is full of examples of companies making you use their products and services when you'd rather not bother, but this is one of the most underhanded examples of the practice I have ever seen.  I am a customer of Facebook, not an employee.  I can list any e-mail address on my Facebook page I want to list as my primary e-mail address.  So if I want anyone who finds me on Facebook to contact me via e-mail through my regular, and not my Facebook, e-mail address, I have a right to make that choice.

All is not lost, though, as any Facebook user who wants to change his or her primary e-mail address back to his or her old one can easily do so.  To revert back to the original address, click on the "About" section of your profile. Once there, look for "Contact Info" and click on the edit icon on its right hand corner. There, you can change which e-mail addresses people can see . . . and, just as, if not more, importantly, who can see it.  I've already done so. 

I love Facebook, and I love how it's allowed me to connect to people I never would have been able to establish connections with otherwise (*cough cough*, fashion models, *cough cough*), but I don't like being dictated to in how I set up my own Facebook page.  Mark Zuckerberg is beginning to annoy me.  Look, if I want to get behind some rich guy who thinks his wealth makes him special and who proposes to violate my freedom of choice, I'll vote for Romney.