A few days back, I blogged this provoking question: Did Facebook sell our Data to Skype? Well, I found out that Facebook asks some of their members to import their Skype contacts. I haven’t seen the respective screen, but a friend commented on it on my Facebook wall, another person had sent me an email about it as an answer to this posting and I found it on Techcrunch as well. (By the way: This blog has a comment function. Of course you can contact me through other channels, but why not keep your comments along with the article for everyone to read?)
The girl from whom I had received the invite has confirmed meanwhile that she entered their Skype credentials into Facebook to import her contact list, so the invite displayed in the Skype alerts was coming from the same feature. She did not tell me any details but it was not like that she sent the invite on purpose (remember: we are already connected). I assume that Facebook makes sending invites the default option and either hides the opt-out or doesn’t provide any at all?! Anybody knows that?
Recently, the blue Skype notification box popped out from my system tray. Previously I had only seen it when someone chose to add me on Skype, but this time it was something else:
An invitation to Facebook! How has this landed in my Skype?! In my Skype settings it says now that I can receive alerts from Facebook, but I don’t remember giving that option in the first place!
There’s also the next screen to show “my Facebook friends”, and this is the scary part:
I am already on Facebook but with a different email address, so there was no way for Skype to match my existing Facebook account. Therefore, the people listed there might be from my Skype contact list, but here they’re listed with their Facebook name, image and link to their profile! It seems that somehow Facebook must have allowed Skype to match the email addresses of their users!!
Has anybody else seen those alerts?! There’s something going on and I don’t know whether I “like” it …
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