4 ms·

Google automatically sharing geotagged photos from Photos to Maps

53 points by arturhoo 8y ago

YouKnowBetter 8y ago
Strange... Among all of my google accounts I have checked and NOTHING was automagically shared. My pictures must suck or I did NOT do: Share a photo On your computer, open Google Maps. In the top left, click Menu Menu and then Your contributions. Choose Photos. Find the photo you’d like to share. In the top right, click More More and then Share.
- arturhoo 8y ago
  As a counter point, I woke up today to this weird email: https://bit.ly/2wMpPL3 https://bit.ly/2wMpPL3 Picture is from 2011 and was originally hosted on Picasa (but I'm pretty certain it was never shared publicly) and I don't have a Google Plus account. If I go to the picture itself on Photos, there's no sharing/privacy controls, so I'd assume it is private. The wording on the email makes it even worse, as if I had intentionally done something overnight to share them on Maps.
  - crottypeter 8y ago
    Perhaps your google account has been compromised?
    - arturhoo 8y ago
      I can't find any evidence that it has been. I use a long and strong password and have 2-step-verification enabled in my account. I haven't received any new account activity emails and the I don't see anything suspicious on myaccount.google.com As far as I remember, I've never used Panoramio (as a comment above suggests to be the cause). I'd agree that this seems limited to some specific circumstances.
muro 8y ago
Never seen that. Maps regularly asks to review and share photos of some place, but never automatically. For now, I'll go with fake news.
josecurioso 8y ago
Yeah... I'm going to go out on a limb and say this guy messed up with one of the prompts asking for permission. This just doesn't happen.
lowry 8y ago
Same for me, but they took my 2009 photos from an old OSM-based website with panorama in its name that I used back then. Can't remember the exact name of the website, though.
- muro 8y ago
  panoramio? http://www.panoramio.com/ http://www.panoramio.com/
  - lowry 8y ago
    Yes! I am pretty sure my photos were on Panoramio only. I never published them elsewhere, not even uploaded to Google Photos.
jchw 8y ago
Never seen this. Doesn't sound intentional at all.
dontCallMeDaddy 8y ago
Highly doubtful that.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
The tweet doesn't say that these photos came from "Photos", just an "unused account". All other evidence seems to suggest that these are photos from another service called Panoramio which Google acquired at some point. Not saying it's right or wrong by the way (perhaps something in Panoramio's TOS that all photos were public), but based on this news I'd assume that my beach photos in Google Photos are safe from prying eyes - for now.
topkeks 8y ago
#FakeNews

53 points by arturhoo 8y ago

Strange... Among all of my google accounts I have checked and NOTHING was automagically shared. My pictures must suck or I did NOT do: Share a photo On your computer, open Google Maps. In the top left, click Menu Menu and then Your contributions. Choose Photos. Find the photo you’d like to share. In the top right, click More More and then Share.

arturhoo 8y ago
As a counter point, I woke up today to this weird email: https://bit.ly/2wMpPL3 https://bit.ly/2wMpPL3 Picture is from 2011 and was originally hosted on Picasa (but I'm pretty certain it was never shared publicly) and I don't have a Google Plus account. If I go to the picture itself on Photos, there's no sharing/privacy controls, so I'd assume it is private. The wording on the email makes it even worse, as if I had intentionally done something overnight to share them on Maps.
- crottypeter 8y ago
  Perhaps your google account has been compromised?
  - arturhoo 8y ago
    I can't find any evidence that it has been. I use a long and strong password and have 2-step-verification enabled in my account. I haven't received any new account activity emails and the I don't see anything suspicious on myaccount.google.com As far as I remember, I've never used Panoramio (as a comment above suggests to be the cause). I'd agree that this seems limited to some specific circumstances.

muro 8y ago

Never seen that. Maps regularly asks to review and share photos of some place, but never automatically. For now, I'll go with fake news.

josecurioso 8y ago

Yeah... I'm going to go out on a limb and say this guy messed up with one of the prompts asking for permission. This just doesn't happen.

lowry 8y ago

Same for me, but they took my 2009 photos from an old OSM-based website with panorama in its name that I used back then. Can't remember the exact name of the website, though.

muro 8y ago
panoramio? http://www.panoramio.com/ http://www.panoramio.com/
- lowry 8y ago
  Yes! I am pretty sure my photos were on Panoramio only. I never published them elsewhere, not even uploaded to Google Photos.

jchw 8y ago

Never seen this. Doesn't sound intentional at all.

dontCallMeDaddy 8y ago

Highly doubtful that.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

The tweet doesn't say that these photos came from "Photos", just an "unused account". All other evidence seems to suggest that these are photos from another service called Panoramio which Google acquired at some point. Not saying it's right or wrong by the way (perhaps something in Panoramio's TOS that all photos were public), but based on this news I'd assume that my beach photos in Google Photos are safe from prying eyes - for now.

topkeks 8y ago

#FakeNews