Facebook

[TheBouquets]

I think I have read somewhere on MN that the list of "Find Friends" means that the persons listed there have been looking at your own facebook page? I am not sure about whether this is true or not. Ihave looked at my own "Find Friends" list and there are some people listed that I don't know, people who I think were children at the same time as me and some that I am curious why they are looking at my page.
Does anyone know for sure about this?

It's an unsubstantiated rumour. They're mostly just friends of friends.

No, it doesn't work like that at all, those people haven't searched for you or tried to view your profile. You'll have friends in common or have the same schools or places of work listed probably

Thanks for that information. It explains the majority of the people but not the one that I am most curious about. There are no friends in common, we were not at the same school and don't even live in the same town. I don't know what it is all about but life is strange!
Thanks again

Do you have that persons phone number or email address in your phone or email contacts?

Agree with PPs. Also, I think sometimes Friends Suggestions are based on old edresses, some from people I haven't spoken with, or wanted to, for 10+ years.

We keep deleting but auto-synch finds them somewhere....grrr.

Thanks
I used to email that person but have not done so for about 6 months. I don't know that all the people I email have come up on these lists. Some have though.
I also checked on internet for van hire and I keep getting adverts about van hire. Perhaps there is something that makes these things show when we are on internet. I am a very basic user.

It's friends of friends, I have a newish friend who lives on the other side of the world to me and my "find friends" is full of people who live where she lives. I've never been there, I likely never will be there and I don't know these people. The only connection is my new friend lives there.

I have had men I've been in a single date with turn up on my 'people you might know' list.

We have no friends in common or any particularly notable shared interests. I don't 'check in' to places ever, so it's not even that. Of the 100000s of people who are on FB, it would be an amazing coincidence for them to be on that list randomly...

But on the whole, it's friends of friends.

OP the ads you see (i.e. van hire) are because you've done a search. Don't think for one minute that all these sites aren't hooked up one way or another. There is literally no hiding place on the Internet. None.

The sooner people wake up to this the better. You think you can hide your IP address by rebooting your router, or using a dongle? Nope. Your PC has a MAC address and that is searchable - if anyone was interested enough in your activities!! Your next door neighbour wouldn't be able to do it, but those who need to know, should you be a little bit iffy, would.

And it's not coincidence that these people show up on your 'people you might know' list, albeit the people you have searched won't necessarily know but they will appear in your list once you've looked at their friends.

The van hire ads are because you've searched. Google uses search information to provide advertising based on what you've searched for. Also sites might have special code installed called cookies which they use to track the way you use their website - sophisticated cookies can even record your activity on their websites so someone can view the way you navigate a site. This is all anonymous, so don't worry too much - big brother may be watching, but he can't see your face! Google has an advertising method which uses cookies to follow people round online - so if you visited a van hire site, you may start to see adverts for that site on other unrelated websites.

To get rid of cookies, you can clear them from your cache. Just Google "clear cookies from [whatever browser you use]" (browser is internet explorer, chrome, safari etc). And follow the instructions, it's pretty easy.

As for advertising on Facebook - I don't know a lot about how their advertising algorithm works as I haven't really used it but I imagine they have something cookie based.

Regarding the friend request / recommendation I think that's driven by your email contacts and friends of friends.

Thank you all very much for all the helpful information. I will try to clear browser and cookies.