5 ms·

If you have concerns over privacy, move your data somewhere that doesn't obviously look into your private data for the purposes of advertising. Stay anonymous.

If you have concerns over privacy, move your data somewhere that doesn't obviously look into your private data for the purposes of advertising. Stay anonymous. Use your ISP's email. Use accounts you pay for and can hold accountable for transgressions like this. You give your data freely to google without understanding the terms of that transaction and they will use those rights in some way you arn't happy with. She should cancel all of her google accounts and move somewhere that gives more favorable terms of service and is directly accountable to her.

waterlesscloud 17y ago
Having thought about it some more, Google is in deep and immediate trouble. They need to act swiftly (in days) and decisively to get on top of this before public perception gets out of hand. Simply put, Google can NOT afford to have public opinion turn against their opt-out model. Their whole vision depends on opt-out. But think about what a week or two of stories like this will do. Opt-out will become synonymous with evil. Then how dows Google Book's stance to authors look? How do all their other auto-data collection techniques look? Google depends on opt-out to their very core, down to robots.txt. They can't afford public opinion to turn against that, and it's going to if they don't move fast.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Entirely agree. You and I know how Google works, but most people think they either configure their servers manually or that they supervise them all in real time. It's like those stories of a dead person receiving a computer-generated bill or debtor's letter - there's no malice intended, but it makes everyone feel bad and damages the reputation of the organization involved.
- ConceptDog 17y ago
  The majority of people don't and will never care about their privacy, particularly when connected to the internet. People who feel harmed by this will be upset and will hopefully understand that they were far more vulnerable than they believed, then take steps to insure that it doesn't happen again. Some people will feign indignation at whats happened to her, claim to be boycotting google, then abandon the prospect when they see how much of a pain it is to change to another service. Most people will never hear about this, and if they do, they won't really care. GMail works for them, they don't understand or care about their privacy. They have a service that works and is implied to be free.
  - mattmanser 17y ago
    There is a MASSIVE difference between not knowing and not caring.
    - calcnerd256 17y ago
      the latter can cause the former
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  Their privacy improvements last night[1] look good on a technical level, but they don't fully address either the underlying user confusion, or the PR issue (they haven't offered a sincere apology). [1]: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users-and-improvements.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users...
algorias 17y ago
Isn't it reasonable to expect privacy by default? Should't you be able to hold even a free service accountable for such a transgression? Google's 'if you have nothing to hide...' attitude should not be tolerated.
- ConceptDog 17y ago
  It's also reasonable to expect someone to read the terms of the contract they enter into. When you skip those terms of service, you're agreeing to those terms. You also always have the choice not to tollerate them. Move away from their service. Don't use google for search. They track every search that you perform tied against your IP. If your privacy matters, take the time to protect it.
anigbrowl 17y ago
We're not talking about the relationship between her and Google, but the one between her and her ex-husband, into which google has unwittingly interposed itself.
- ConceptDog 17y ago
  She willingly included Google in that relationship by making him a contact and giving Google information that they had a relationship. You can't give away information and expect it not to be acted upon. Corporations are not bound by anything except for the law and the contract they form with you. If it's within their rights, they can and will act upon it.
  - danudey 17y ago
    It sounds like there are two issues here. First, that Google assumed that because they were 'frequent contacts' that they were best friends, and thus him and all his jackass friends were made followers on her Google Reader. The second is that all the people that frequently contact HER (via an anonymous account which forwards to her Google account) now have her personal Gmail account and are following her on Buzz (and Google Reader), which she can't stop from happening. The problem is that Google's assumed that anyone with whom you correspond frequently is a friend with whom you're willing to share all of your data, when in reality a lot of people are forced to correspond with people whom they don't like at all, and that Google shouldn't be saying 'Hey, we've created a new thing called Buzz, and we've told everyone all about you on your behalf!' Edit: also worth mentioning: you don't 'make someone a contact' in Gmail, Google does it for you automatically whenever you e-mail someone. Also, she didn't give Google information that they were in a relationship, Google just did this automatically. Even people that she e-mailed from an anonymous address via gmail got access to her profile. Google basically gave everyone her personal info without asking if it was ok, and now she can't take it back.
    - dagobart 17y ago
      > The second is that all the people that frequently contact > HER (via an anonymous account which forwards to her Google > account) now have her personal Gmail account and are > following her on Buzz (and Google Reader), which she can't > stop from happening. Until now, hiding your mail address from spam was one of the biggest concerns one had with email. Now, that might turn into hiding from Google. Or at least circumventing where we don't want it to do something with our private data we do not agree with. That might turn out to be hard.
txxxxd 17y ago
"Stay anonymous. Use your ISP's email" You ISP is the least anonymous email provider available. They know exactly who you are, where you live, and can see everything you do online.
- telemachos 17y ago
  I may be wrong, but I think that the parent of your post had a more limited idea of 'anonymous' here. Your ISP knows all the things you say they do, but so far as I know, no ISP does the kind of social/networking stuff with your information that Facebook, Yahoo, Google and company do. A government agency can get information from your ISP, but your ISP doesn't "share" anything through default-to-yes things like Buzz. (I may be wrong about this. Some ISPs may do this too.)

waterlesscloud 17y ago

Having thought about it some more, Google is in deep and immediate trouble. They need to act swiftly (in days) and decisively to get on top of this before public perception gets out of hand. Simply put, Google can NOT afford to have public opinion turn against their opt-out model. Their whole vision depends on opt-out. But think about what a week or two of stories like this will do. Opt-out will become synonymous with evil. Then how dows Google Book's stance to authors look? How do all their other auto-data collection techniques look? Google depends on opt-out to their very core, down to robots.txt. They can't afford public opinion to turn against that, and it's going to if they don't move fast.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Entirely agree. You and I know how Google works, but most people think they either configure their servers manually or that they supervise them all in real time. It's like those stories of a dead person receiving a computer-generated bill or debtor's letter - there's no malice intended, but it makes everyone feel bad and damages the reputation of the organization involved.
ConceptDog 17y ago
The majority of people don't and will never care about their privacy, particularly when connected to the internet. People who feel harmed by this will be upset and will hopefully understand that they were far more vulnerable than they believed, then take steps to insure that it doesn't happen again. Some people will feign indignation at whats happened to her, claim to be boycotting google, then abandon the prospect when they see how much of a pain it is to change to another service. Most people will never hear about this, and if they do, they won't really care. GMail works for them, they don't understand or care about their privacy. They have a service that works and is implied to be free.
- mattmanser 17y ago
  There is a MASSIVE difference between not knowing and not caring.
  - calcnerd256 17y ago
    the latter can cause the former
mbrubeck 17y ago
Their privacy improvements last night[1] look good on a technical level, but they don't fully address either the underlying user confusion, or the PR issue (they haven't offered a sincere apology). [1]: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users-and-improvements.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users...

algorias 17y ago

Isn't it reasonable to expect privacy by default? Should't you be able to hold even a free service accountable for such a transgression? Google's 'if you have nothing to hide...' attitude should not be tolerated.

ConceptDog 17y ago
It's also reasonable to expect someone to read the terms of the contract they enter into. When you skip those terms of service, you're agreeing to those terms. You also always have the choice not to tollerate them. Move away from their service. Don't use google for search. They track every search that you perform tied against your IP. If your privacy matters, take the time to protect it.

anigbrowl 17y ago

We're not talking about the relationship between her and Google, but the one between her and her ex-husband, into which google has unwittingly interposed itself.

ConceptDog 17y ago
She willingly included Google in that relationship by making him a contact and giving Google information that they had a relationship. You can't give away information and expect it not to be acted upon. Corporations are not bound by anything except for the law and the contract they form with you. If it's within their rights, they can and will act upon it.
- danudey 17y ago
  It sounds like there are two issues here. First, that Google assumed that because they were 'frequent contacts' that they were best friends, and thus him and all his jackass friends were made followers on her Google Reader. The second is that all the people that frequently contact HER (via an anonymous account which forwards to her Google account) now have her personal Gmail account and are following her on Buzz (and Google Reader), which she can't stop from happening. The problem is that Google's assumed that anyone with whom you correspond frequently is a friend with whom you're willing to share all of your data, when in reality a lot of people are forced to correspond with people whom they don't like at all, and that Google shouldn't be saying 'Hey, we've created a new thing called Buzz, and we've told everyone all about you on your behalf!' Edit: also worth mentioning: you don't 'make someone a contact' in Gmail, Google does it for you automatically whenever you e-mail someone. Also, she didn't give Google information that they were in a relationship, Google just did this automatically. Even people that she e-mailed from an anonymous address via gmail got access to her profile. Google basically gave everyone her personal info without asking if it was ok, and now she can't take it back.
  - dagobart 17y ago
    > The second is that all the people that frequently contact > HER (via an anonymous account which forwards to her Google > account) now have her personal Gmail account and are > following her on Buzz (and Google Reader), which she can't > stop from happening. Until now, hiding your mail address from spam was one of the biggest concerns one had with email. Now, that might turn into hiding from Google. Or at least circumventing where we don't want it to do something with our private data we do not agree with. That might turn out to be hard.

txxxxd 17y ago

"Stay anonymous. Use your ISP's email" You ISP is the least anonymous email provider available. They know exactly who you are, where you live, and can see everything you do online.

telemachos 17y ago
I may be wrong, but I think that the parent of your post had a more limited idea of 'anonymous' here. Your ISP knows all the things you say they do, but so far as I know, no ISP does the kind of social/networking stuff with your information that Facebook, Yahoo, Google and company do. A government agency can get information from your ISP, but your ISP doesn't "share" anything through default-to-yes things like Buzz. (I may be wrong about this. Some ISPs may do this too.)