27 Sep 08 What data does Facebook keep?
I’m an avid facebook user, simply because I like to know what happens. Facebook’s, “People You May Know” feature was a natural evolution. There were times when I discovered people I did in fact know and consequently added. Other times there are people I simply don’t know.
But today, something weird happened which made me specalute on what data Facebook keeps. A few years ago, I met a girl, and I searched for her on facebook. She wasn’t on it and I forgot about it.
Today, she crept up in my “People You May Know” feature… I always thought that the feature simply checked your mutual friends and location data. I clicked on her name to see how many mutual friends we had… NONE. Now, she stays in the same city as me, but there are tons of people in this city. There is no reason she should’ve crept up in the “People You May Know” feature. When I checked how many friends she had, she only had 2!
Now, the only reason I can think how it got there was that I searched for here a year or 2 ago!
Kinda weird if you ask me. They don’t quite stipulate it. I’ve always been an advocate of relegating privacy for comfort and ease of use, but I think web companies should stipulate what data they store… (Maybe they do somewhere).
