How can I get my Facebook photo out of my e-mail?

April 25, 2010 7:49 PM

I have a Facebook account linked to a Yahoo e-mail account. For some reason, my Facebook profile photo now appears in my out-going email. How do I get it to stop?

I've even changed my profile picture, but my Yahoo account is still attaching my old one to e-mail messages. There's a big Facebook "F" on the corner of the photo, and I've only ever used this photo with Facebook, so obviously there's a connection there. I've changed all my Facebook privacy setting to the extremes in privacy . . . does this take a while to affect things?

posted by Dee Xtrovert to Technology (13 answers total)

don't be signed into them both at the same time. as much as I multi task, MeFi is the only login enabled site I leave open concurrently with anything else, since they all seem to want to mate and spawn big violations of my privacy.
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:54 PM on April 25, 2010

Response by poster: I hear you . . . but it still happens even when I'm signed into Facebook.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 8:03 PM on April 25, 2010

There must be an option somewhere in yahoo's email system to change your profile picture there.

this yahoo answers question doesn't appear very promising, someone asked the exact same question there and didn't get a response.

But according to This one you can change your yahoo profile picture at this URL but that might just be for yahoo answers.

Another place to try might be profiles.yahoo.com, check and see if your picture there is the same as your email one, and if so, you should be able to change it.
posted by delmoi at 8:05 PM on April 25, 2010

yes - If you're going to use Yahoo, log out of Facebook, and vice versa. I think the problem is that when you're signed into both of them, they can see each other. So only use them one at a time, and log out of one before opening the other, so they can't see each other.
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:07 PM on April 25, 2010

Response by poster: So my last post should have read "even when I'm not signed into Facebook."

And it's not my avatar or Yahoo profile picture either, just some weird extra photo from Facebook which showed up yesterday.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 8:11 PM on April 25, 2010

See if either of these Facebook links help.
posted by mhz at 8:21 PM on April 25, 2010

Try clicking Account-> Account Settings -> manage Privacy -> Applications and Websites -> Instant Personalization (edit settings), and then uncheck the box (Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information).

Not sure this will work, but whatever that box does do is creepy enough to turn it off.
posted by deadweightloss at 8:23 PM on April 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

Not sure, but this is probably related to the new "Instant Personalization" garbage Facebook just rolled out, and deadweightloss' comment is the first step folks are recommending; you may also have to delete some apps. More info at Valleywag and Lifehacker.
posted by mediareport at 8:36 PM on April 25, 2010

Not sure, but this is probably related to the new "Instant Personalization" garbage Facebook just rolled

Wow, I just disabled that. But according to facebook:

Is there a complete list of which websites are enabled for instant personalization?

Instant personalization is enabled only for the following partner webs...

Instant personalization is enabled only for the following partner websites: yelp.com, docs.com, and pandora.com.

Now, maybe that list is out of date, and it seems like they'll probably add more.

Christ facebook is obnoxious.
posted by delmoi at 8:53 PM on April 25, 2010

Yeah, I hadn't heard of anything involving Yahoo, but that list isn't all of the sites involved. A friend had it appear at CNN.com and it looks like ESPN and other media sites are involved as well.
posted by mediareport at 5:10 AM on April 26, 2010

"even when I'm not signed into Facebook."

crap, sorry about that. although I use both FB and yahoo, I have not experienced this problem *yet*, but I have fairly complete profiles in both. so I eagerly await to see what if any solutions arise.
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:53 AM on April 26, 2010

I haven't had this problem with Yahoo, but I have found myself signed into sites I'd never even visited before, even after unchecking the instant personalization box. I've also had massive problems delinking my delicious account from my Facebook account (every link I saved to delicious appeared in my Facebook feed). I've deleted the delicious app, blocked it, logged out of both, cleared my cookies & cache, etc., all to no avail.

I finally deleted my Facebook account today. If that doesn't stop it, I'm blowing up my computer. I don't think they know what they're doing with respect to linking sites, APIs and such, and I would have very low expectations if I were you.
posted by desjardins at 9:12 AM on April 26, 2010

Here's a little more info at Librarian By Day. Looks similar to what delmoi posted, but may have some more details.
posted by peep at 4:02 PM on April 26, 2010