Facebook working on a fix for e-mail sync glitch

Last week, Facebook decided to switch all of their users' e-mail addresses to @facebook.com without their knowledge. This replaced users' existing email IDs and since Facebook contacts can be synced with your phonebook, it even interfered with people's contact details in their smartphones. This has seemingly affected iOS, BlackBerry and Android users. This move drew a lot of flak from users and now the social networking site has stepped up and has confirmed that it is working on a solution to fix this bug. Andrew Bosworth, Director of Engineering at Facebook, explained to the Verge over the phone that the real intention was to hide users' existing email address and not replace them.

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"Contact synchronization on devices is performed through an API. For most devices, we've verified that the API is working correctly and pulling the primary e-mail address associated with the users' Facebook account," Facebook explained. "However, for people on certain devices, a bug meant that the device was pulling the last e-mail address added to the account rather than the primary e-mail address, resulting in @facebook.com addresses being pulled. We are in the process of fixing this issue and it will be resolved soon. After that, those specific devices should pull the correct addresses."

Irate reactions from the web are somewhat justified. Sure, it might appear silly that Facebook would make a move like this without notifying users and they should have. On the other hand, there’s no point in worrying about a Facebook e-mail address which you aren’t going to be using. All mails that you receive on the Facebook e-mail address from a non-Facebook e-mail ID end up in a different folder altogether, so it won’t necessarily clog your inbox.

Facebook’s Timeline also has been of some concern to users. The Timeline feature presents your entire Facebook history, as well as any personal history you choose to put in, in a chronological order. However, according to a study done by IT security and data protection firm Sophos, 51 percent of Facebook users are concerned about the Timeline feature. Sophos found that there are concerns that the additional information that other users have access to will make it easier for identity thieves and stalkers to abuse.