How is facebook making some of these friend recommendations?

[KingGheedora]

All my FB friends are coworkers. I signed on today for the first time in 4 months and i see recommendations to add as friends people I know. But I'm wondering how it knows to recommend them if they can't possibly have any connections to any of the people who are currently on my friends list.

One of the recommendations is someone who's on my gmail address book who kept emailing me about two years ago, thinking I was someone else. I don't even know that person so it seems like FB somehow got a hold of my google address book. I'm conservative about privacy so I have never told FB my gmail password. So the one thing I can think of is that those people searched for my email address but since my profile is private/hidden they didn't come up with anything, but FB is now making friend recommendations based on that scenario. It would be strange for that person who I didn't know to search for me and try to friend me though. I guess maybe he put his gmail password into FB and I was still on his address book. Okay, I think i answered my own question, but since I went through all the trouble of typing all this up i'm posting it anyways to see what you guy think.

Previously all the recommendations i've seen it make are for people who know people who are already on my friends list.

 

[GeekDrew]

I've given up trying to figure out how they make recommendations. I get recommendations for friends-of-friends, people I know that have no link to any of my FB friends, etc. I assume that some of them are uploading their address books or granting FB access to their address books.

 

[orakle]

These people have you in their address books (or in the case of Gmail, have at some point interacted with you by e-mail) and are forking over their logins to Facebook for automated friend searches. Even if they don't add you, Facebook retains their contact list and then suggests them to their contacts. Scary shit.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: orakle
These people have you in their address books (or in the case of Gmail, have at some point interacted with you by e-mail) and are forking over their logins to Facebook for automated friend searches. Even if they don't add you, Facebook retains their contact list and then suggests them to their contacts. Scary shit.

indeed, i dont have *local* friends on my facebook.

theyre local.

i have friends who arent local...and i get suggestions to add their friends all the time. i just ignore it.