I’ve never used the Game Center friends feature; I have zero GC friends, and zero requests pending. But I do notice the automatic recommendations for friends in the GC app and I’m curious: where on earth do they come from? At least 50% of them are people I do actually know! But they are NOT in my Address Book. (Besides, I have not given GC permission to access my Contacts anyway—I see where GC offers the option, but I haven’t enabled it.) And I have never played a game with any of them; nor with anyone they know. (Most of them list 0 games in common.) I’ve never even exchanged a call or email with most of them. They are not my real-life “friends" per se; but they ARE people I know slightly, and many of them know each other. So where on earth is GC getting these people from?? I want to understand, as a matter of privacy. FWIW, I believe most of these people are connected to each other on Facebook, but I don’t use Facebook; I have an account, but I disabled everything and set privacy to the max. Besides, I never heard of Apple gathering info from Facebook. These people also seem be members of the same group on Meetup.com—that’s the strongest correlation I can find—but again, how would Apple know that? And it’s not geolocation; GC doesn’t ask for GPS access, nor is any GPS activity logged. And anyway, by location I’d get hundreds of strangers, not mostly real-life acquaintances. (Related concern: I also see that GC reveals these peoples' real name AND GC playername. It ties those two names together—and shows their photos—even before anyone has made a friend request. I thought real names were supposed to be hidden until you make a friend request, but here GC is broadcasting my real name and playername to other people as recommendations.) Thanks for any insight! I’ve only found vague info from Apple.
Yes, except I have zero GC friends (I've never used that feature) so its not that; nor is it games in common, since many of the recommended people list 0 games in common. The recommendations have to come from outside my gaming activity, since theyre people I know locally. But from where?