Report: Facebook email switch changed address books

A story by CNET's Violet Blue Saturday said Facebook's move to change users' e-mail addresses didn't just affect their Facebook profiles - it affected their personal address books, as well.

"Facebook users say contacts' e-mail addresses on phones and personal devices have been altered without their consent," Blue wrote. "Their e-mail communication is being redirected elsewhere, and lost."

Earlier this week, Facebook users noticed their personal e-mail addresses had been replaced on their user pages with a company-owned address. The move prompted the Electronic Privacy Information Center to ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the matter.

But, Blue wrote, the e-mail switch was also built Apple's iOS6 Facebook integration, meaning Apple product users who stored e-mail addresses on their devices also had their address books rearranged.

The story also quotes an Adobe employee who discovered another problem with the change.

"Even worse, the e-mails are not actually in my Facebook messages. I checked," Rachel Luxemberg said on her blog. "They've vanished into the ether. For all I know, I could be missing a lot more e-mails from friends, colleagues, or family members, and never even know it."