Feb 12, 2010 05:00 PM
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I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and
my mother. There's a BIG drop-off between them and my other "most
frequent" contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is. My
abusive ex-husband.
Which is why it's SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I've made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.
My other most frequent contacts? Other friends of Flint's.
Oh, also, people who email my ANONYMOUS blog account, which gets forwarded to my personal account. They are frequent contacts as well. Most of them, they are nice people. Some of them are probably nice but a little unbalanced and scary. A minority of them - but the minority that emails me the most, thus becoming FREQUENT - are psychotic men who think I deserve to be raped because I keep a blog about how I do not deserve to be raped, and this apparently causes the Hulk rage.
I can't block these people, because I never made a Google profile or Buzz profile, due to privacy concerns (apparently and resoundingly founded!). Which doesn't matter anyway, because every time I do block them, they are following me again in an hour. I'm hoping that they, like me, do not realize and are not intentionally following me, but that's the optimistic half of the glass. My pessimistic half is of the abyss, and it is staring back at you with a redolent stink-eye.
Oh, yes, I suppose I could opt out of Buzz - which I did when it was introduced, though that apparently has no effect on whether or not I am now using Buzz - but as soon as I did that, all sorts of new people were following me on my Reader! People I couldn't block, because I am not on Buzz!
Fuck you, Google. My privacy concerns are not trite. They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up. A few days is how long I expect it will take before you either knock this shit off, or I delete every Google account I have ever had and use Bing out of fucking spite.
Fuck you, Google. You have destroyed over ten years of my goodwill and adoration, just so you could try and out-MySpace MySpace.
Harriet Jacobs is the nom de plume of the author of Fugitivus. She's a
mid-twenties white girl living in the Midwest, working at a non-profit
that assists families and deals with a lot of racial politics. Harriet
has had a fucked-up life, and Fugitivus
—fugitive—is her space to talk, where the fucked-up people who did the
fucked-up things couldn't find her and be creepy.
Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.
The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gizmodo.com
Original material
is licensed under a Creative Commons
License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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However, I will say us abusive ex-husbands deserve some love. Reply
The only aspect I disagree with you here is that this was somehow an oops,
or badly planned, or poorly thought out.
This was a fundamental serious change to one of their core properties,
not some little or fun thing put up "over there" for folks to try, this is something that would affect 170 Million people.
This is a multi billion dollar international corporation, filled with
extremely bright people, there are constant meetings, discussions, a complete vetting occurs.
Petabytes of data on behavior are analyzed.
This is the company that market researched dozens of shades of green for the logo.
This was intentional, by design,
a conscoius choice in consideration of Opt-in vs Opt-out stats, added to paranoia about Facbook and tweeter.
With one eye firmly fixed on the bottom line, a desire to generate momentum and hype for the appropriately named "BuZz",
and finally a now corporate belief, expressed by their chief that privacy is outmoded,
they made this choice.
Then, the next day, as planned, the top story on Techmeme was about their fantastic success, Millions
already signed up, using it! Reply
I'm not defending Google here, but I'm curious why you'd continue to use an account known by an abusive ex and his friends? Reply
Now if she was trying to avoid contact altogether, then yeah, maybe a new address would have been prudent. I still see the fault being with Google in this case. Reply
Google definitely didn't think this through. This is a typical facebook move. Reply
Now take that scenario to the next logical step and realize that a major portion of the stories that are posted on Gizmodo, come from unauthorized leaks. These users are risking their jobs to leak info, so that Gizmodo readers can stay informed. This breach of Google's could very well seal their fate (not that they weren't gambling their job by leaking details anyway, so they may deserve it)
No privacy in who you email, means no Gizmodo, or at least not one you would want to read. Reply
1) used account2 to follow account1
2) went to account1 and blocked account2
3) buzzed on account1
4) magic! on account2 i am still following account1 and seeing the new message account1 :D
5) back in account1, account2 is still shown as blocked
also turning off buzz simply hides it, it doesnt do anything to your profile or people following you or anything
for extra fun: turn off buzz, then turn it on. look account2 is back in account1's followers, unblocked :D
words can not describe this fail... Reply
update:
1) went to account1 profile found the small link at the bottom that says "delete profile" and clicked and confirmed. no public profile, no buzz, right?
2) went to account2, search for account1's name and it's there in the results and i can follow it :D
why didnt google do this with a beta stage and invites like all their other services? Reply
I think the underlying issue is that Google in a way became a victim of its own success. Those of us who use GMail use it because it is reliable. So reliable in fact, that we all use it as our "real" email account with real information that for better or worse we have shared with other people in our lives. Hindsight is 20/20 and you may have contacted someone that turned out to be an asshole or something, but in that moment, for whatever reason it was a good idea to share information with that person. You may have felt that person worthy to give your real email account for contact. You can't predict the future and it isn't ideal to have these mistakes in information come back to haunt us without warning. You expect that from the likes of Facebook or Myspace but, and maybe I'm naive in saying this, not from Google. Reply
gReader Sharing Options
gBuzz User Control Options Reply
yes, she shouldn't have to, but it is so much easier to do than any other option. You check one email, then sign in to the other or set up two inboxes in gmail, or use thunderbird to keep them separate.
i'm not sure why she used a "private" email and then had comments sent to that account. that isn't private at all. keep all online activity in one name and keep the private just to your closest contacts you trust. Reply
[www.pcworld.com]
Unlike Giz (who continues to give articles like this), PC world does an article that breaks down how to set everything up, and/or just remove it 100% completely. *applaud PC world* Reply
I disappear for a whole day and now... What has happened to the comments section on Gizmodo now? This is bordering on Engadget bullshit insanity.
No, really, someone give me a FAQ, this is just... astounding... to see the comments and misogynist hatred that came up. Reply
bleurgh. sickening, is what it is. Reply
On the other hand, I really don't understand why some of this stuff gets promoted. I've felt the temptation to reply to trolls on Gawker sites myself, but I've resisted knowing that if I show some self control, they won't get the satisfaction of anybody but me reading their comment. Reply
Jeff Archipley
Victor Lin
G.O.B. - Come on!
Nathan Obbards (though I had a chat with him and he stopped)
Among other people (¬_¬) Reply
Personally I think Brdf did a commendable job. Reply
I'm looking at my contacts, and I can't see who they email... and of the people that do have public Google profiles, I can't see who they email, unless they are following them, but then they would also have to have public Google profiles anyways.
Is there a miscommunication of the level of security here? I can't seem to access any of my contacts information even if I try, and I know they haven't made any security changes yet, so they are running on default...
Can someone please explain? Reply
"So if you saw a follower in someones list it was a solid assumption that they email them"
Or rather, in my case as a freelancer who has contacted hundreds of random people over the years the assumption is that I emailed them once. This thing dredged up a lot of people I do not know, and maybe spoke to once years ago about a story I don't even remember. Very weird. Reply
...Other people won't be able to see those, will they? Reply
that can not be done in buzz. even if you don't opt in you can always be followed.
Google only just today added the ability to block people in reader. Reply
1) There is no way to prevent somone from following you like 'deny' or'ignore' etc
2) there is not way to be expunged from buzz and avoiding this in the first place. Reply
2. As another person pointed out, when you post you select who to post to on Buzz, so if you have all the people in the world following, you just are going to post only to the select groups, which is what I was referring to when I said setting up your privacy settings. Make a group for Family, a group for Friends, and post how you want, public stands for public and it is going to post for the public. Reply
I just don't want
If i had been incorrectly associated with a group of sex offenders, people would have no problem understanding that i would want no such affiliation.
I don't use products like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter for a reason. why is it so hard for people to understand i don't want to be associated with buzz? Reply
To put it simply: this woman says some stupid shit. I seriously feel discriminated against as a man, and a "good" man at that.
In the comments section of one of her blogs, she says the following (paraphrased; if you want the real deal, check out her blog "A woman walks into a rape, uh, bar"): 'all heterosexual sex is non-consensual.'
And why does she feel this? Because according to her, ALL women are scared that if they voice that they don't want to have sex, they'll be raped.
WHAT THE FUCK.
In addition to that, she mentions in the article that ALL her friends have been raped. Once again, what the fuck? What kind of people does she hang out with?
My point here is that this woman has no right to be so stupidly condescending towards all men. Sure, she's been raped, and that's really awful. But I, as a generally nice person who loves having sex, am seriously offended by her telling me that the only reason women will sleep with me is because they feel I'd rape them if they'd turn me down.
I'm sure I'll get a bunch of replies screaming "if you don't like what you're reading, don't read it!" but that's nonsense. I did read it, and now telling anyone who wants to listen that this woman has got the wrong idea.
So fuck you, Harriet. I won't be talked to like that. Reply
Probably one of the most marginalizing sentences on the internet. Congratulations. Reply
"Listen, as a guy, I bet rape rarely, I mean, if ever, crosses a woman's mind when she has to tell a stranger that she isn't going to fuck him.
"In fact, lemme tell you what: I think this rape victim is a real bitch. I mean, she even says that her friends are rape victims! You believe that? What the fuck? What kind of people does she hang out with? Rape victims?
"Personally, of the two of us, I'm the real victim here! I mean, I'm a good guy! In fact, I'm seriously offended by her, a rape victim, telling me that when she thinks about men having sex with women, she will forever associate it with being raped.
"My point here is that this rape victim has no right to be so stupidly condescending towards all men. I'm not sure what more a girl has to do than be raped to be able to dislike men and the thought of sex, but as a good guy, I can tell you that being raped certainly isn't enough for her to have that point of view.
"So fuck you, Harriet. I won't be talked to like that."
~HeroOfTommorow Reply
The only way it would ever become an issue is if you actually used it. Reply
And where's his visor? Reply
But don't take my word for it.... Reply
If Google went down tomorrow, I'd pretty much have to kill myself. I use Gmail for my business because it available to me anywhere, and my ability to organize and integrate it with my other data and apps is stunningly useful. And no spam.
I use Google Street View to check out businesses that might have a use for my rear projection digital signage business line, which is designed to be displayed in windows. I "go" down the street looking for businesses that have a suitable window and then I contact them. Saves hours of riding around, and it's free.
I have a lot of my business information and important documents stored on Google docs, which I also use to collaborate on projects. My blog, [eyestir.blogspot.com], is on you guessed it, Google. I use their calendar, the "to do" list. It just goes on and on.
Today I hooked up Google Buzz, it was easy, too easy, just like the rest of the Google happy dust. To my surprise (shock?) I am being "followed" by someone I don't know - but who once posted on this blog. And with several hundred other "contacts" I am sure that this is just the beginning.
What can he see? According to Google:
"Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages will automatically appear as posts in Buzz. To edit your connected sites or change privacy settings, view connected sites."
Is even this too much? Sure I have public Picasa albums, I use Google reader (Feedly actually, but they are integrated into the matrix, sorry Google), but I don't know... this just feels invasive.
What really bothers me though, is that unlike our other shadowy masters, Steve and Bill, I know nothing about about Sergei and Larry, other than they are very smart and very very rich. Jesus, they might even be Republicans! Are you scared yet?
"Don't be evil", Google motto.
Larry and Sergei have information, lots of it. Absolute power and all that.
Google indexes every word on every web page in the world.
Google, or "The Google" as I like to call them - is a problem.
Every email I send, they store. Every email I get, they store. Their robots read my mail to serve me ads. You too. Is that all they do? Who knows? Google does!
Has Barak Obama ever visited bigtits.com, or made some intemperate remarks about white people in his emails? I have no idea, but Sergei and Larry do, and if he did, they own him now. You too of course, same for all the senators and congressscum, one false step on line and the Google has got your number.
They have all the passwords. They know where you went and what you searched for. And it's not going away.
If you don't believe me, just Google it. Reply
Buzz is different. It's a huge slip-up.
As they say, trust is hard to gain but easily lost. And with Buzz Google lost a lot of trust. Reply
[tinyurl.com]
Reply
i am no longer a big fan of google. they are NOT an upstart or a frat kid writing his idea of how a social networking site should work - they should know better. Reply
And it is not secure, the Chinese have already attacked Google, and the rumour is that they are cooperating with NSA on ways to protect "their" data. I am sure that others have tried, and others certainly will try in the future. Once NSA is has a line into the Google hyperdata, we're all cooked. Reply
Man, I can't remember the last time I was this embarrassed about being part of a "community."
Whether you have the same reaction as the poster or not, it's amazing how many of you are acting like rabid little rats.
If nothing else, this is a guest in your "house."
What the hell is wrong with you people? Reply
Unless you don't believe the author's story, I'm not sure how you can defend Google on this one - or blame Harriet for being furious.
Harriet is no internet novice. She seems to have known how things work, and she kept her personal and public lives appropriately separate (and for good reason). Then, Google decided to change the rules without warning, exposing Harriet to real dangers, and has made it impossible for Harriet to fix Google's mistake. Despite efforts, and through no fault of her own, her identity is out there. Neither she nor Google can get the toothpaste back into the tube.
Now, the good people at Google may think they're smarter than they actually are - but they are generally very smart. And, at the very least, they tested Buzz among themselves and would have seen some of the many obvious pitfalls. I can only conclude that Google decided to force fast adoption via opt-out (an all-too-common web2.0 strategy). Reply
I know it's the internet, but I've come to expect more from the Giz commenters. Reply
Exactly. Reply
I can understand why she's so pissed off, but really - it's no different from rants at other services, specially the social kind, on the Internet.
Google f*cked up for not realizing the implications of the whole Buzz thing, but this isn't the first and won't be the last time information leakage will be seen on Internet services.
It's plain and simple: If you don't want private info to leak, don't publish it anywhere on the Internet, period.
Golden rule.
I know it's kinda harsh, but privacy on the Internet is an illusion. Unless you're paying a lot to maintain encryption services and whatnot, and even so...
Also, I didn't quite understand the part about Reader items sharing.
There are two options. You either share it publicly, where she'd have no reason to complain if the shared items leaked since it was already out there, and you care share in "Protected" mode, where you get to choose the e-mails which will be able to read those items ( [www.google.com] ) thus the information not leaking at all.
So what happened there? Reply
In fact, as far as I can tell, I'm not using Buzz.
How do I check to see if I was auto-opt in? I look at the bottom of my gmail and do not see anything. Reply
Good thing I don't. Reply
Furthermore, when they first turned it on, even if you didn't have a public profile you would show up on someone else's followers list automatically. So there was sharing without a public profile. This has been remedied, but only because us privacy whiners made a big deal.
I may seem like I am over-reacting, and perhaps I am, but I have worked in IT security for years. I have dealt with Hipaa, SOX, and even did a stint in IT forensics. I take breaches of privacy very seriously, and there is no such thing as just a little exposure. Google exposed data to people they knew. They did not give the person a choice, there was no warning that it would be enabled automatically and no instructions in advance to prevent it.
There are some people that aren't concerned about privacy, that is obvious by the comments as well as the prevalence of sites like Facebook. You should also be aware that there are people that are concerned about privacy and they take it seriously. Not participating on the internet in any way is not realistic. Instead they go about their lives trying not to compromise too much on privacy. I don't participate in social networking sites because I don't want that info out there. I would not have even considered opting into Buzz if I had been given the choice. So in the end it may not be a big deal to you, but for those of us who care, and see it as a serious breach, why do you care if we rail on Google about it? After all it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other. Reply
Set buzz so only people in specific groups can see your stuff. Really easy
You can make reader private too. Reply
Even if I didn't know them, I was there in their contact book. That's the first thing, and it's really the department's fault on that.
The worst part was how easy it was to tap into other people's inboxes, which I never managed to do but some people were known to easily access everyone else's inboxes.
This is why I still use Hotmail, albeit the spam it's still the most reliable for me. Google and their services still have way too many loopholes, bugs and insecure methods of doing things for my liking. Even if it doesn't really matter to me. Reply
Google knows where you live,
Google knows where you go,
Google knows what food you eat,
Google knows what porn you like
Google knows your health issues
Google knows who you have relationships with
Google knows what you say to others in email and chats
Google knows where you work
Google knows what hours you work
Google knows what streets you drive, and when
Google knows your secrets
Google may have only revealed the part about who you email and chat with. But they did not do it accidentally. They did it intentionally because it would lead to faster adoption of Buzz (or so they thought). In other words Google just betrayed the trust of it's users, no matter how unfounded that trust is. If Google is going to continue to thrive as a service they are going to need people to trust them. What else might they divulge for their own benefit. Reply
Google didn't do squat but make a design decision that apparently didn't take into account the blind ignorance most users seem to display when they use the internet.
YOU had to turn on sharing for Google to share anything.
YOU had to share something for anyone to be able to see it.
That you did so without thinking even in the slightest about the privacy implications of what you were doing, without even checking the settings controlling such, is YOUR fault. Not Google's. Reply
Just turning off Buzz does nothing. It just hides it. It's a false sense of security. Everybody else can still see what you're doing.
I wonder how many people are turning Buzz off and thinking that they're done with it. That's another future lawsuit in the making right there. Reply
This is the kind of thing that could put Google out of business, and forever change the way internet companies are legally obligated to handle our private information.
I'm serious, start calling attorneys. You won't pay anything out of pocket for this one. Reply
It's the kind of bad PR that makes our little jokes about how Google owns all of your secrets and can/will do whatever they want with them into generally-accepted "facts."
Google gives woman's home address to abusive ex-husband? I know they didn't do it intentionally, but that's a killer. Reply
NOO F$#% YOU!!!!
Oh wait you weren't talking to me...nvm... Reply
Now i have a dozen stalkers and no way of removing buzz. Reply
This reminds me pf when I went to FYI and bought a movie. I was opted into 2 years of magazines becasue I paid with a credit card.
I didn't want those magazines, I didn't agree to them but I got them any way. And 2 years later they tried to bill me for a subscription renewal.
Even though no money was tendered... I find this equally as shady. Reply
For some of us even that is too much. Reply
Without a public profile, it doesn't seem like people can really find me to follow me. And before I turned off Buzz, nothing was in it. I had followers (though only my wife and one other person who was following my blog before) and I was following people automatically too, but I just unfollowed them and then turned off Buzz and that seemed to do the trick, there's still nothing in my Buzz when I switch it back on to check.
It seems like not having a profile is the key. Reply
I don't read her blog, so don't have a take from that side of things, but Google Buzz seems to have been a story of privacy snafu upon privacy snafu. It was a botched roll-out, and Google really does not seem to understand nor take seriously the privacy concerns with the integration of their services.
I'm sure they'll be quick to respond, but what happens when the next Google "innovation" reveals your Google Voice number to everybody that's ever emailed you from anywhere? Or your private cell number for that matter?
These are legit concerns. Reply
The story above is horrifying. I'm so sorry for you and I hope its okay. Reply
I deleted my profile but from what i can tell If
a) You have a gmail email
b) Somone else who has gmail has that addres
They can attempt to follow you with buzz. That means you are still part of Buzz via association. Reply
I don't have accounts on Facebook, myspace, twitter or any other social networking site for the same reasons.
I should at least be able to completely opt out. I can request solicitors not knock at my door. I can request junk mail not be delivered. but I can't be expunged from buzz.? Reply
Also, Google has already rolled out a number of security patches and update in direct response to people's concerns. Seems to me they're handling it pretty well and that there's a lot of judgmental people criticizing it very early on here on Gizmodo. At least give it a chance to settle in and be grateful that the horror stories like the one written above are few and far between. They're just very high profile because they are in extraordinary situations. Reply
To paraphrase Molly Wood from yesterday's Buzz Out Loud: if I had a phone with Verizon, and one day Verizon fundamentally changed their service to make my phone number public and broadcast everyone in my address book and their phone numbers, without my consent, would 'get a new phone number' be an adequate response? Reply
Oh wait... Reply
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