Facebook notification settings reset: implications

Today I received an email which may or may not have been from Facebook. It simply read:

Unfortunately, the settings that control which email notifications get sent to you were lost. We're sorry for the inconvenience. To reset your email notification settings, go to: http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications
Thanks, The Facebook Team

I'm always on my guard when it comes to things like this, and feared it was a phishing scam where someone was trying to steal my details. After all, how could Facebook lose such important settings? Email notifications allow you to let Facebook send you alerts when something happens, so you don't have to constantly log into the site. But such alerts can be annoying -- you can get alerts for every tag, event or group invitation. So I've pretty much turned all of these off. Surely Facebook couldn't lose these settings?

Well, when I logged in to Facebook I got a similar message:


Logging into the notifications page, sure enough, most of my alerts had been reset so that I had to change THIRTY-TWO...(32) email alerts to "off".

Email alerts don't pose privacy problems as such; just annoying alerts (although if you use Facebook at work, such excessive alerts could be picked up by your IT/HR department so they can detect your activity). But the technical glitch does make you think of more serious scenarios, namely the loss of privacy settings. Does Facebook have these backed up? What if all privacy settings were suddenly reset and your profile was exposed to more people than you'd intended -- even though you, as a responsible and privacy-conscious Facebook user, had painstakingly set up your Facebook privacy profile?

I'm interested in hearing what Facebook has to say about it. In the meantime, I'm doing a screen shot or noting down my current privacy settings and double-checking a few things.

They're still out there: Facebook Applications

The new-look Facebook does away with having to endure the tedious applications that plagued traditional profile layouts. In the past, you would see, quite literally in some cases, more than a hundred icons and boxes representing various apps that your friend may have added to their profile page. Now, all this crap is hidden behind a tab called Boxes, and under this tab you can choose to display chosen Applications or just access them via the Applications menu.

In 2007, the most popular apps included Scrabulous (the unofficial online version of Scrabble), and the ability to be bitten by a vampire. Flixster, Super Walls and slideshows were also the rage.

Although you may think your Applications are now gone for good, they've just been shoved under a mat and they do pop out from time to time. You will still need to make sure Applications like games don't harangue your friends every minute to try and beat your high score, or post updates to your profile every time you play. To do so:

Click Applications, located at the bar to the bottom of your screen, then Edit, to see a list of all your applications.

Next to the Application settings you want to view, click Edit.

For Geo Challenge, I see these options:

Allow Geo Challenge to publish one-line stories automatically, but prompt me for larger stories.

Prompt me before publishing any stories from Geo Challenge.

Never publish any stories from Geo Challenge.

Allow Geo Challenge to publish specific story sizes automatically without prompting.

Then there are the e-mail notifications. To adjust these, click Settings at the top of every Facebook page. Click Notifications, and right at the bottom, under Other Applications, you'll be able to select whether or not you want to be alerted on e-mail whenever something happens (whatever something is).