Community Chat

[Marp]

Minutes after I logged onto the Internet this morning I received a phone call from a friend who saw that I was online; not the site to which I was logged in but simply that I was online!

Through questioning we determined that it had to have something to do with Facebook which I had just reactivated to look at family pictures and forgot to deactivate afterward. The keep me logged in box was on and once I logged onto the Internet Facebook knew I was there. The friend that telephoned is also a Facebook friend.

Once I went into Facebook and deactivated my account my friend rebooted her computer; the other people on her active list were still there but I wasn't which confirmed the Facebook connection. I don't know if simply logging off Facebook would have prevented my friend from seeing when I went online or if deactivating the account was necessary.

In researching this is apparently a new feature of Facebook and Facebook and a number of other sites are sharing a technology to let users know when friends are online. My friend is a U-verse customer.

If you have a Facebook account and stay logged in be forewarned that your mere presence on the Internet may be enough for at least your Facebook friends to know you are online.