Facebook - People you may know!!

[Cheeseandhamtoast]

Logged onto Facebook today and in the People you may know list there was:

My old gardener - I didnt know his surname and he doesn't know mine, I have never searched for him, and we have no friends in common - all his friends list are Portugese.

My DS's barber! - all his friends are Spanish, and no friends in common. I don't have his phone number or email.

A girl my DS was friendly with at nursery, who moved away to another area and I have no contact with.

Why are these people on this list? Does it mean they have searched for me? If we don't share any friends in common, how can they be suggested to me? They are also not on any groups I am on.

If they have been then I am apparently of great interest to quite a few Argentinian women

So all the people showing up in my 'people you may know' may have searched for me then? [confused}

No, you just notice the ones you notice, iykwim, and think they've been looking for you. But, you're probably linked in all sorts of ways. I wouldn't put it past fb to show people who have looked for you for I do think people underestimate how easy it is to find a connection.

I had one like this that freaked me out. Few years ago now, but a name I didn't know popped up and I clicked on it because it was a really cool surname and I was nosey. Turned out it was someone I knew, but she'd got married. However, she was the cousin of my ex-husband, we'd had no contact for about five years, I had no contact details for her at all, let alone on the computer. Neither of us knew each other's surnames, telephone numbers or email addresses and we had no fb contacts in common. I was quite pleased to get back in touch though .

I've been through my FB settings today, and found 'permission to gather data from other Apps' or suchlike, and something about targeted advertising, so not much really. Possible you just don't get to opt out of the really creepy stuff!

Yep could be as simple as liking the same newspaper on facebook. Then liking the same news stories that kind of thing. I had a weird influx of ransoms from the other side of the world suggestions and having a nose they all seemed to like the same game page of some description and I'd shared something that I'd seen on a friends page so facebook decided I was just being coy and must have 95 friends in a country of never even visited.