To feel a bit put out about my googling habits being announced on facebook?

[Psammead]

I know. Facebook. Work of the devil. But I live abroad and it lets me quickly communicate with family and friends back home.

Anyway, I am pregnant - 19 weeks. Not everyone back home knows about this as I would like to tell people personally when I visit in July. Last night I was idly googling baby names to find out origins/meanings etc of a few I quite like. This morning I logged onto FB and noticed a few comments so I checked to see what they had commented on, and it was a thingy saying that I had been looking up a certain baby name. There were a few comments speculating as to whether I had some news to share.

Now, I didn't click on any FB links on any website, didn't log in to any site, didn't authorise anything, as far as I know, and my FB account is fairly secure, I thought.

So, I am feeling quite cross that FB has 'found out' what I googled and has taken it upon itself to post it! AIBU? And how did this happen?

oh yeah and let's not talk about it's automatic facial recognition software which basically is a database of what everyone looks like. Evil Governments would kill for the information they have.

The technology is there for a stranger to take a picture of you on the street and can then find out a lot of information about you on the internet.

Btw congrats op

OMFG two new Wolef cubs on the way

Muchos, muchos felicitaciones Psam.

Oooh 20 week scans. Please somebody use Josephine or Aphra though. If you have girls obviously. We won't be having anymore and I love them. No pressure like.

Thumb, my bil and sil live in Oz and the name trends there are a bit, um, different to here. Sil is actually Australian and genuinely can't see the problem with the names Sally-Sue and Jilly-Jane. She says it's because she's 'bogan'? Is that the term she uses?

wow thats scary! I would be mortified if my FB friends saw what I was googling!
As a result I have just checked my apps on my FB settings, there must have been about 25 utter shite things that I have no recollection of signing up to, eg. 'when will I get pregnant' 'whats the perfect wedding dress for me'
Have deleted all of them now other than 4 which I 'need' (facebook mobile, draw something, dragon dictation and my work's website)

Strange how easily you can get sucked into these things without realising?!

Josephine is on my unofficial but actually quite thoroughly researched, alphabetised, graded and colour coded list! Upside - it rocks. Downside - in German it's pronounced yo-se-PHEE-nae. And we are in Germany.

Thanks, Stratters!

It might also be a computer virus to blame. last week a virus intercepted my DH's emails and started sending random stuff e.g adverts,and silly messages to everyone on his recent emailing list. He was totally embarrassed and had to set up a new email addrress.

Showy, she's not kidding about the names. Bogan is a "lovely" term - best translation is probably trailertrash, but it's not exact - generally roughish characters with interestingly different attitudes to life, society, ownership and so on, but could also be thought of as redneck, salt of the earth types... it's a toughie! DH is Aussie and he didn't even know the term - I only knew it from Neighbours and a Melbournite client I had in the UK!

I'll give you an e.g. of some of the names in DS's footie class:
Jaiden, Jayden, Brock, Jaykub, Braden, Slay (not sure of the spelling there), Slater - they're the more interesting ones!

But you just slap people who say it wrong until they learn. And you refer to her as Sephie or Phin because they're brilliant nicknames. They'll get it eventually.

I quite like the German way of saying it though.

I have a similar thing where FB announces what 'news' items I have been reading on Yahoo. I don't want my guilty pleasure sleb news reading habits to be broadcast to my friends.

Anyone know how I turn this off?

Wow. Aussie names are interesting.

Stratters, one name we were talking about for a boy was Wolf In a 99% jokey, 1% incredibly cool kind of way. Maybe weshould, in honour of the wolefs

SIL is being tongue in cheek when she calls herself bogan I suspect (she said it's a bit like calling somebody a redneck actually). But she does like hyphenated names and kre8tive spellings. She swears this is the norm over there.

Allegro, I think you need to delete the Yahoo app? Or at least change the settings of it.

Showy, it's ok, but I would prefer names with near-as-damit pronounciations in English and German, for the sake of ease.

Wolf is a brilliant name for a boy. Rafe is an old German name, means 'counsel of the wolf'. I have a Raphael, known as Rafe.

Facebook is floating on the US stockmarket in eactly one hours time.

The firm is thought to be worth over $100 billion. One of the largest Initial Public Offerings in history all based on a website that is 'free' to its users.

How do you think a firm like Facebook makes its money and can be worth that much to investors when you use it without paying for it?

The answer to that question is why I never use Facebook.

Why does everyone seem to be reading articles from the Huffington Post? I simply do not believe it at all.

The privacy settings are deliberately confusing though. I know I have all apps disabled - assume that's a good thing?

Love, love, love Rafe and Raphael, but DH went to school with a nasty one so for him it's out. It was top of my list before I found that out.

Wolfgang. Brilliant JC name

Wolf gets my vote, Psamme - it would be perfect in Germany! Not so good over here, despite name oddnesses!!

I think I'll be going more classic, tbh - I can't stand creative spelling and "humorous" names. I do like Raphael but it would be like painting a target on a child's head over here, I reckon!

My dh says that you shouldn't think of Facebook as providing you a service. Facebook exists to sell advertising to companies and get as many people exposed to it as possible. You are facebook's product, not its client. The clients are the companies who pay for the advertising and that is why Facebook is free.

Had been thinking about reactivating my account but now I definitely won't, particularly as i only really use my phone and know there are many things I can only see or do on the puter. So thanks everyone for saving me!

The whole thing just gives me the heebie jeebies

Don't be mad at FB for not confirming. That's not them. It's Google or whichever name site you might have looked at. They have to add the 'show a confirm before posting to FB' page/screen.

FB does not do stuff from other sites automatically. Other sites connect to FB automatically.

It's crap, I agree, but let's place the blame in the right place.

And congrats to Psam and Thumb!

There was something in privacy about connecting with google. I unchecked the box.