You May Not Know It, but Facebook Changed Your Email: Here's How to Change It Back

MENLO PARK, Calif. (The Blaze/AP) -- You might not have noticed but over the weekend your contact email on the public side of your Facebook profile was changed to an @facebook.com address. Many were not pleased about this flip.

Facebook replaced the email address users chose when they signed up in an effort to allow them to communicate with outside email addresses via Facebook.

The changes were first pointed out by bloggers over the weekend and publicized by media outlets Monday, leading to gripes from users, usually on their Facebook pages.

The company said in a statement in April that it was "updating addresses on Facebook to make them consistent across our site." Although the addresses were changed quietly, but the company is quick to point out they did let users know.

Facebook spokeswoman Jillian Stefanki said the site is also rolling out a setting that allows people to decide which email addresses to show on their pages.

"Ever since the launch of timeline, people have had the ability to control what posts they want to show or hide on their own timelines, and today we're extending that to other information they post, starting with the Facebook address," Stefanki said in an email late Monday.

Still, as Gizmodo puts it to the company, "Facebook, it's probably safe to say that the way we all had our things before was the 'choice' we made about 'which addresses...show on [our] timelines.' This wasn't about choice—in fact, it was the opposite. You chose for us."

Late last year, in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook got slapped with 20 years of audits and a required "opt in" feature -- as opposed to its usual opt out -- for any changes it made to the privacy policy. Although the email switch was not associated with privacy features, many users would have preferred to opt in to use the @facebook.com address instead of having to manually change back to their preferred public email.

To change your @facebook.com email address, go to your profile page and access your contact information in the "about" section. Click the edit icon. At this point, you will have the option to "show" or "hide" the email addresses present in your profile on your Timeline. You can hide email completely from your Timeline, only make one address available on your public page, or provide multiple addresses.