facebook tracing

[kalos]

hello!
I spoke with someone on facebook, without having him as friend, just on chat, and he was able to trace my exact street!
how did he do that?
why is facebook allowing that?
thanks!

[Ath]

You have quite loose visibility settings allowing any indirect contact (friends of friends?) to access you info, apparently. You are in control, though... FB provides with very strict access, but you have to change that manually.

[kalos]

thanks but your reply is very generic
how do I restrict that specific information to be revealed? (my exact location)

[tomos]

thanks but your reply is very generic
how do I restrict that specific information to be revealed? (my exact location)

look at your FB settings, I would suspect.
I personally wouldnt trust FB with that kind of info, but that's another matter...

[kalos]

but I keep my fb very generic, without much info

please understand it's not the location I live and I typed in fb when I opened the account, that got revealed, it's my actual location at the time of the conversation!

[xtabber]

please understand it's not the location I live and I typed in fb when I opened the account, that got revealed, it's my actual location at the time of the conversation!

Your Internet connection provides geolocation information whenever you are online.

This is the case even if you turn off location services in your browser or mobile device (if you even have that choice), because all service providers capture this information and sell it to data brokers and online services.  If you connect through a mobile phone, your precise location is captured, at least in the US, because all mobile phones are required to provide GPS coordinates for emergency services and law enforcement.

Facebook makes your location available to advertisers to "enhance the customer experience" by informing you of sellers near you. 

[Curt]

and the guy you were chatting with, did not have to do anything out of the ordinary, he just had to read what facebook is saying: >"Curt" "1 minute" "Copenhagen"<. But as already said, this information may vary with your settings.

[kalos]

and the guy you were chatting with, did not have to do anything out of the ordinary, he just had to read what facebook is saying: >"Curt" "1 minute" "Copenhagen"<. But as already said, this information may vary with your settings.

no, it's something more than that
look at this post:
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10151853396070572
she says:
"When I chat with people on Facebook it tells them my location and if they click on my name they can see my exact location! How do I fix this?"

where exactly facebook tells her location? that could be the ordinary you are saying that facebook displays ''from Copenhagen"
but she continues saying, if they click on her name (not sure what she means) they can see her EXACT location!!!

this is probably what I am refering too, but I have not seen/done it on facebook
any idea?

[tomos]

where exactly facebook tells her location? that could be the ordinary you are saying that facebook displays ''from Copenhagen"
but she continues saying, if they click on her name (not sure what she means) they can see her EXACT location!!!

this is probably what I am refering too, but I have not seen/done it on facebook
any idea?

• have you even looked at the settings yet ?
• or tried any of the suggestions in that thread ?
• i.e. what exactly have you tried so far ?
• apart from asking questions here ?

[kalos]

Tomos I think you misundestand and misbehave

facebook has a stupid organising and has settings in many different places
facebook.com/settings has many sub-settings, none of which refers to revealing your location or not
I already looked at security and privacy (who knows what is the difference between them)

which suggestions do you refer to?
I am asking questions because you don't seem to understand what I am talking about
it's not the generic City you get from your ip trace which resolves your ISP info, it's more precise than that

[tomos]

I already looked at security and privacy (who knows what is the difference between them)

that's all I wanted to hear - I get frustrated when you (or anyone else) just keep asking questions without saying what you have done yourself to try and solve the problem.

And I wouldnt call that 'misbehaving' - I'd call it a bit of good advice:
if you want help - be helpful to those who are trying to help you - and that includes the above (i.e. telling what you have tried (or not); what you know yourself; etc. etc.)


edit// I meant did you follow up on any of the suggestions in the thread you linked to (and no, I didnt look very closely at them so have no idea if they're of any help - that's for you to figure out - but let us know)

[kalos]

I didn't mention it because it was obvious that I refered to the settings and google

[tomos]

Maybe I misunderstand that you half want to bring this to our attention, and half want a solution.

I'm sorry if I get impatient, but still think my advice is good.
For the second half (a possible solution) - did you connect to FB using a phone?
(If so what are the settings on the phone as per your thread?)

[kalos]

yes, I connected via phone
but I don't remember if it was my web browser in my phone or facebook messenger
there is a setting in messenger for location, which I now disabled, but not sure if this was the case

and I still want to check others' location with such accuracy!
in the easy way that the question to facebook support, that I posted, mentions!

[Deozaan]

If you use Facebook Messenger on your phone/mobile device, there's a setting in there to allow the Messenger to show your location to the people you chat with. It is enabled by default and uses your precise (GPS) location.

I don't know where/how to find that setting on the Facebook website in the browser, but if/when your browser requests access to your location, there should be a notification and you can just press disallow. (If you've previously allowed it, it probably remembers your choice and will continue to allow it in the future. In this case, go into your browser settings and remove Facebook from the allowed sites to access your location.)