Facebook Has Some Housekeeping To Do

Dear Facebook, before we sashay into the “Age Of Facebook” it would be just dandy if you could tidy the place up a bit, sweep up a few cobwebs, unwrap all the new furniture and get rid of those pesky bugs. We’ve oohed and aahed over the exciting new gizmos, the sparkly social plugins and the Open Graph. But as you hurtle to 500 million users and beyond, you have to prevent bush league errors from bubbling up. For example, as tipster Sven Hoffmann pointed out and confirmed by my Facebook account, when I get a friend request and click on the “Confirm Friend” button, the log-in screen that pops up shows my potential friend’s full e-mail address, not mine.

Obviously, that’s not a very exciting image, but I assure you that my e-mail address does not begin with a “d” or end in a “7”. This is no cause for alarm, it’s not a major security threat— if someone is friending you on Facebook, they are probably OK with you knowing their e-mail— however, it is a silly mistake, in a series of mistakes (in March a bug briefly revealed hidden e-mail addresses and in February, the site accidentally rerouted private messages to the wrong users— whoops). It’s not bizarre for a site with so many moving parts and so many users to have the occasional glitch, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence among those worried about their privacy. Come on Facebook, you can do better.

(Image Source: Flickr/x-ray delta one )