“People You May Know” May Know Too Much
Facebook utilizes many different methods to connect users to potential “friends” on the website, most of which aren’t particularly surprising to its users. The number of mutual friends is an obvious method to find suggested friends, in addition to the high school or college attended and other groups people can share. Facebook can also use one’s saved contact info to connect users to potential friends. However, every now and then one sees a suggested friend that completely boggles the mind of the user, begging them to ask how Facebook possibly knew there was any interaction between the two individuals. Fusion writer, Kashmir Hill, delves into a previous theory that was denied by Facebook, but user experiences argue otherwise.
If one allows, Facebook can connect to a user’s exact location at all times, supposedly in order to allow location stamps to be added to all of the user’s status updates and media posts. However, recently people have claimed that Facebook may also use their exact location in the “People You May Know” function as well. In the article a Facebook user claims that a person who the user had extremely minimal contact with was suggested as a potential Facebook friend. No contact info was shared and there were no mutual friends between the two users, all they did was share a room for an extended period of time. After checking his settings, the user found that Facebook always had access to the user’s location, and concluded that that was the only way Facebook could’ve possibly connected the two.
This raises some privacy concerns, as there is the possibility that just being in the same room as someone could grant them potential access to one’s Facebook page. This can be disruptive in groups or social settings in which one wishes to remain completely anonymous. Facebook continues to deny that location is utilized to suggest friends, but more and more people seem to experience odd situations in which someone they’ve only seen once shows up on People You May Know. As the world becomes more and more socially connected through the internet, it makes one wonder if privacy is now just a thing of the past.
http://fusion.net/story/319108/facebook-phone-location-friend-suggestions/