Facebook's cookies
Nov. 3rd, 2011 12:02 pmLet's say I'm having affairs with ten married women, two married men, and a couple of geese. Now, unrelated to these — and this is actual fact — I have only two Facebook friends, my friend Dave so that I can take part in turntable.fm, and my friend Tina so that I can read posts on The Campus Restaurant Revisited community (the Campus Restaurant was the long lost freak hangout across from my high school). Now, there's no crossover between those two sets of friends — my musicwrite world and my high school reminiscers — though I really hope that some of the latter will eventually enter the former world (esp. Tim Page, who's been publishing music criticism for longer than I have and has won a Pulitzer for it, Steve Nesselroth, John Freeman, who plays bass and lives in Chuck Eddy's part of Texas, and someone named Steve Gregoropoulos, whom I don't remember if I've ever met but he likes Britney's "I Wanna Go" and the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses"). But that fact is neither here nor there. What's directly pertinent is that none of the people in either of these two worlds, musicwrite and the Campus, have anything at all to do with the ten women, two men, and several geese I am having affairs with. And no one who has ever asked to friend me on Facebook, or has ever written me via Facebook, has anything to do with the ten women, two men, and assorted geese. Yet not only have all ten women as well as both men shown up in the constant barrage of "Add people you know" and "You may know this person" that Facebook is pelting me with, but their spouses and friends and spouses' friends have too. (Either the geese aren't on Facebook or they are but Facebook hasn't yet grown wise to them.)
( So how does Facebook know I know them? )

EDIT: Kat points out in the comments that this actually has fuck all to do with cookies, is rather people willing to give up their address books or email activities to Facebook.

EDIT: Kat points out in the comments that this actually has fuck all to do with cookies, is rather people willing to give up their address books or email activities to Facebook.