21 ms·

Google+ invite lands man in jail

165 points by fridek 13y ago

tehwalrus 13y ago
hmm, this is an interesting case! I think it must hinge on whether or not the guy actually acted to cause the invitation, or whether this was an automatic google thing based on previous emails between the two accounts. If it was simply an automatic "add these people from your past emails" notification, then it seems very unreasonable to hold him to account for it. Sounds like the defendant needs a witness from Google about how Google+ works - which will almost certainly be difficult to get!
atmosx 13y ago
Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request. That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order. I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and lawyers loose common sense the minute they start practicing.
- rayiner 13y ago
  A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's whether the person under the restraining order tried to initiate contact with the person being protected by the restraining order.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I actually know jack-shit about Google+. I assumed what the article was talking about was like a Facebook friend request where you have to individually invite a specific person. Will Google+ really just randomly spam people you've had e-mail conversations with?
      - cbhl 13y ago
        Facebook can and does "randomly spam" people you've had e-mail conversations with if you let them at your address book.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        jessaustin 13y ago
        True, and furthermore, services like this (FB, G+, LI, etc.) have every incentive to escalate their involuntary contacts over time. Every once in a while they'll go too far too quickly and have to backtrack due to public outcry, but there won't be any outcry about the plight of alleged order-violators. In general you should expect every service that knows your name and any other person's contact info to send that person many messages on your behalf without your consent. It will be nice when the courts figure this out; I don't expect it to take them more than twenty years.
        rayiner 13y ago
        > It will be nice when the courts figure this out; I don't expect it to take them more than twenty years. It would be even nicer if courts put a stop to this madness.
        jessaustin 13y ago
        Eh, maybe. I can't really picture a law forbidding automated email that wouldn't have horrible consequences for most citizens. Perhaps the courts ought to just accept that the world changes and change along with it?
  - xtirpation 13y ago
    You're right of course, but I struggle to view the world in such a black-and-white manner to be honest especially when there are black boxes like in play, Google+'s source code in this case. How much proof would have to be provided that the Google+ invitation was sent deliberately by the user? Sworn testimony from a Google employee? There can of course exist bugs that send invites erroneously that nobody knows about. Revealing of the source code and analysis by experts? Unknown bugs can still exist, especially in systems as large as Google's. Stepping back from this particular case, what about apps that scan your contact list and automatically send invites and/or messages? These situations aside, it's far too easy to accidentally send an invitation. Hell, I don't doubt that many people reflexively agree to prompts on websites they think they're familiar with. Of course the argument can be made that people with restraining orders must be more careful, but it just doesn't seem sane to me that people can get jail time for clicking a button on a prompt that most people wouldn't think twice about.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      When someone has taken a restraining order out you've lost your rights to shades of grey. The order is designed to be black and white to provide clear, firm, boundaries over which you will not pass. Before the restraining order there are several levels of allowance which let people obey the spirit (no contact) or to experiment with boundaries. When under a restraining order you need to take special steps to ensure complyance.
      - xtirpation 13y ago
        Sure, I agree that special steps should be taken, but in our age of automatic/transparent updates and data longevity I think we need to re-evaluate the immediate responses taken by law enforcement when restraining orders are violated. It's not at all far-fetched for scenarios where apps automatically send messages to current/previous contacts without the user's consent (in fact we've seen this time and time again). Should the immediate response really be to jail the offender, especially if the process for proving intention one way or another can be long and arduous? Because if that's the case, what we're really asking is for people with restraining orders to become technology-shunning luddites since they can't guarantee the apps they use won't have mined their connections in the past, or that apps they've stopped using after the restraining order don't send messages on their behalf.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > A restraining order means no contact, period. No, a restraining order means whatever the restraining order says. A restraining order may or may not say "no contact, period" (and, in fact, it is unlikely to say "no contact, period", especially in the case of a TRO which is always issued in the context of a lawsuit between the parties, which necessarily requires contact by certain channels). > A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact A request to link accounts that isn't initiated by the person who is a subject of order, even if it is presented to the person who is protected by the order by an online service as an invitation to connect to the subject of the order cannot, OTOH, be a violation of the restraining order, as there is no act by the subject of the order involved.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  ...judges/prosecutors... [lose] common sense the minute they start practicing. The system actually selects for the most vindictive, Procrustean, authoritarian candidates for these positions. So if you're an attorney with an ounce of decency or common sense, you don't even get the chance to "lose" that as a judge or prosecutor, because you never become one of those.
- darklrd 13y ago
  I think Google+ auto sends an invite when you add someone to a specific circle.
- mcv 13y ago
  > That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. There's no such thing as a "friend request" in G+. You can follow someone, which means you get to see their public posts. The other person will get a notification of that, but won't see anything you post. Of course the other person can decide to follow you, and then you get to also see their non-public posts that they share with a circle you're in. And of course they get to see your posts (public and appropriate circles). But even if people don't follow you, G+ can still suggest that you might want to follow them. And this being Google, that could probably be based on the fact that you emailed each other a lot 2 years ago. So the big question here is: was it a notification that the restrainee followed the restrainer? Or was it Google inadvertently suggesting that the restrainer might want to follow the restrainee?
DateK 13y ago
Collateral damage?
tjgq 13y ago
The article focuses mainly on whether the man did indeed send the Google+ invitation to his former girlfriend. It seems to me that the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order. The bar is far too low when receiving a single inconsequential message that you have full ability to ignore can be considered a form of harassment.
- rmc 13y ago
  If the restraining order says "Don't contact them", then it makes sense that if you manually triggered an invite that would break the order.
- ronilan 13y ago
  > the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order. In America we, the people, go to court to get answers to tough questions. Easy questions we google.
- buro9 13y ago
  A restraining order is against any form of contact. You (and I) don't know the circumstances that led to the restraining order. There may have been violence, intimidation, harassment, abuse. This may even form part of a consistent pattern of abuse. The woman in this case may feel so traumatised by any reminder of her ex, or contact from him, that the act of receiving an email from him (on his behalf) may actually be deeply upsetting and disturbing. It may undo any efforts she has put in place to move on with her life, and restore her to the place of being abused. If a court has put in place a restraining order then there is no acceptable basis for the ex to contact her. Including whether that contact is via an automated email on his behalf. I'm with the v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶ court on this. Someone is to blame, and the bar isn't too low. I do think that a decision like this will cause Google to evaluate the impact of any automated emails. I also think that if you get a restraining order against you it's not enough to lazily avoid contact with the other person, you should proactively ensure that you do not contact the other person... so purge your address book if need be, the court has made it your responsibility to not contact the other person.
awk23 13y ago
I understand what the author is trying to say but there is an awful lot of "perhaps" punctuating all the G+ bashing he manages to fit in that post. I'm guessing the relevant evidence will be reveled in court. Also worth discussing if an invitation email, automated or otherwise, should be considered a restraining order violation.
voidr 13y ago
Just opened up Google+ on a 15" Mac Book Pro in Chrome and all I see is whitespace and "You may know", "Interesting people and pages" and other useless crap, what I'm not seeing is my feed. Only around 10% of the screen space is used for things I care about, it really baffles me how Google thinks that this is a contender against Facebook. They should realise that spamming people won't make them like their horrible UI. Edit: Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4889ilnwfmplu0l/Screenshot%202014-01-09%2011.42.25.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/4889ilnwfmplu0l/Screenshot%202014-...
- DominikR 13y ago
  Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really? With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook. And how does your comment have anything to do with the article?
  - tim333 13y ago
    Out of curiosity I just opened my g+ on a 1280 x 800 thinkpad and counted pixels and 17% was feed with my normal settings. Actually by changing the text size you can vary the percent of screen your feed takes from 0% to a max of about 75%. Facebook has a fair bit of empty space too.
  - voidr 13y ago
    > Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really? > With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook. Look at the screenshot I posted on the original content. The point of my comment was that Google should focus on making their product actually usable instead of trying to carve out some market share by brute force.
    - DominikR 13y ago
      > Look at the screenshot I posted on the original content. Seems to be a new (or inactive) G+ account that is following few (if any) active users. What are you honestly expecting to see in your newsfeed?
tluyben2 13y ago
I watch American tv shows and movies and am well aware of restraining orders but thought it was something very rare and almost never happens; now I read this. Is it that normal to get one 'after a breakup'? I have never heard anything like that in my country except for hardcore, life threatening criminal situations. Is it that easy to get one there and you actually get rounded up and hauled to a cell for violating while you are just 'contacting'?
- rjknight 13y ago
  If it sounds unlikely, then there's probably more to the story. We don't know what happened between them that caused a judge to believe the order to be necessary, but I presume that such orders are not given lightly.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    You presume incorrectly in the case of a temporary restraining order. These can be and are granted without a hearing from the restrained party: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Temporary+Restraining+Order http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Temporary+Rest... http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/faqs/violence.asp http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/faqs/violen...
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    Well I presume that as well; I hope someone here has experience with that and can tell how hard it is? Because I just had that 'wow!' experience ; it feels like they hand them out at the police station to anyone asking :) I know they are not, but some 'actual', non media enlarged information would be great!
    - ZoFreX 13y ago
      I'm confused as to why you are under the impression that restraining orders are 'normal', or that they hand them out to anyone asking, based on a single data point of one person getting one restraining order?
Suro 13y ago
Why did the former girlfriend did not block the profile ? Google may have not advertised this feature but it doesn't look like hard to find...
- RexRollman 13y ago
  Because putting him in jail was more appealing to her?
- mcv 13y ago
  Blocking does not prevent him from seeing her public posts, though. She may not notice, but you could still argue it's a form of stalking. And because of that notification, she now knows.
blueskin_ 13y ago
Moral of the story: Don't use google+.
- Jgrubb 13y ago
  The story was that the "perp" claims he didn't even send the invite, that Google must've generated it for him. The moral of the story is that you might be a user of G+ and not even know it. Read the article before boiling it down for us.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    From TFA, a perfect example of how joining G+ could lead to this predicament: And by default, when someone joins Google+ and that person is in your Gmail contacts, Google will automatically send you a notification, along with an invitation suggesting that you "add him [or her] to your Circles to stay connected." In such a scenario, the alleged unrestrained person could be held responsible for the fact that his alleged target had received emails from him at any time in the past, such as before the order was requested or before they even "broke up". It may well be that there are other scenarios that require even less interaction.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Leastways: not with your real name.
mseebach 13y ago
It's about a violation of a restraining order. In other news, taking a step lands man in jail.
fridek 13y ago
I guess guy added her to his circles expecting a twitter-like model of following as a means of mild (or not) stalking. It's not that surprising that she got notified, but it would be great if "never send any email on my behalf" option existed in social networks.
- sedha 13y ago
  On Twitter you also get notified by email when someone follows you, only the recipient can opt out of this behaviour (which as it should be).
jhgg 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if she mistook the "People you may know" notification for an from someone add them to your circles on G+.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Well, she and the cops, since she "went down to the local police station with a print-out of the invitation".
  - Jare 13y ago
    I don't think many people can understand half of what Google's UIs are trying to do or say anymore, even while we interact and use them. I wouldn't expect your local cops to be more knowledgeable from a printout.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
drdaeman 13y ago
I wonder if restraining orders apply to third parties contacting on behalf of the restrained person? Suppose, it's violation only if it's proven that the person willingly made third party to make contact? (Otherwise it's nearly trivial to put anyone under a restraining order to courtroom, huh.)
- einhverfr 13y ago
  If they did, the third party would have a right to be told about it proactively and a right to contest it. I am betting there is no jurisdiction that does this.
philbarr 13y ago
I have a friend who works the emergency telephone line and is getting increasingly frustrated with calls regarding Facebook. A typical call will have the caller complain that, "[person x] has written something horrible on my wall!" So he says, "hang on? They've written on your wall? So you're friends with them?! Just un-friend them!" In fact in a recent review he was told off for groaning loudly on the telephone when someone mentioned Facebook. However, you can see that if Google+ continues with it's desperate push for market share like this, there will be more and more instances like that in the article. People really won't know how to properly eliminate others from the online social lives, as easily as just "un-friending" them.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sedha 13y ago
  G+ did nothing out of the ordinary here (if indeed it did anything, there is plenty of guess work in that post) Facebook friending and Twitter following have landed many a person in jail, none of these services got this sort of blame for it. When adding someone to your circle they get an email notification, same as when you follow someone on Twitter they get an email telling them that, But suddenly in G+ it's 'aggressive'?! sensationalism and blaming one service for something that is done by all and is mainly innocuous is bad form. And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading.
  - fuzzix 13y ago
    > "And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading" Does it ever send individual invites without explicit and clear consent or without explicit action by the user?
    - sedha 13y ago
      Not in my experience. Only the 'such and such added you to their circles' notifications.
Joeboy 13y ago
It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened. The problem here seems to be that the man was held accountable for a breach of such an order that was both minimal and unintentional. I would guess that the law takes this possibility into account, and the police involved probably should have rejected the woman's complaint as vexatious, if that was the entire basis of her complaint.
- adekok 13y ago
  > It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened. The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high. "My partner hit me!" And he's out. The courts are required to have a hearing within 30 days. Call the court and ask for that, and you'll be laughed at. 6 months later, the accusation is dropped. In the mean time you've lost your house, kids, and likely your job. DoS attacks aren't limited to computers. When we make it easier to do something... we get more of that behavior. Both good and bad.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    > The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high. And that is terrible, but I am not necessarily sure it is net terrible. To decide that, we would need to compare it with the terribleness of having no expedient legal recourse when you reasonably fear a partner might harass, assault or kill you. I've no doubt the implementation details suck though. Ninja edit: Words.
    - adekok 13y ago
      > we would need to compare it with the terribleness of having no expedient legal recourse ... We largely have this data. Historically there were no TROs, and domestic violence was higher than it is today. However, there is no evidence that domestic violence is lower as a result of the "easy TRO" process. Instead, we see that incidence of all violent crimes have plunged in the past 30 years. I would wager that domestic violence rates fell in conjunction with overall violence rates. And that TROs had little, if any, impact on them. This would mean that TROs are likely to be net negative, because they add a new negative of false accusations.
X4 13y ago
Does that only apply to the USA and UK? That is almost like "thought crime", when you look dangerous, or have similarity with someone portrayed in the media as the "bad guy". Can a person "feeling" intimidated by your look or presence sue you too? That would be ridiculous and put everyone into constant pressure to "look normal" I think.
DanBC 13y ago
A similar case happened in uk where a man sent facebook friend requests to everyone in his email list, which included his ex wife who had a restraining order againts him. On mobil so links in a while.
jellicle 13y ago
Judge: do not contact this woman. Man: {apparently continues harassing her} Police: {enforce} Not seeing what the problem is here. The question of whether he actually did attempt to contact her is a fact-based one for the courts... Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court. And all he has to do to win is raise reasonable doubt. Get a friend to say "I did it as a prank, and he told me not to." No restraining order violated.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Really? I think that's the legal equivalent of your mom saying "of course he couldn't have committed that murder, he was with me that night, we were watching Netflix."
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      The prosecution had better have forensic evidence proving your mom wrong in that case.
  - rmc 13y ago
    Sure, but you've have to prove it in court. The criminal justice system is used to sorting out claimed alibi's. I'm doubtful you have discovered some novel hack to the justice system.
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      No. That's not how it works. They'd have to prove you wrong. "I didn't do it" is not an affirmative defence.
Pxtl 13y ago
sigh, and with this comment thread, Hacker News has completed its transformation into Reddit. Well, that and the multi-day outage. So, where to next?
- DanBC 13y ago
  Re-read the guidines about accounts less than a year and Reddit. You're right about the flood of MRAs from reddit. But flag the submissions you think don't belong here and up ote the submissions that do belong here.
stesch 13y ago
BTW: http://storify.com/joliss/what-happens-when-our-software-has-broken-privacy http://storify.com/joliss/what-happens-when-our-software-has...

165 points by fridek 13y ago

hmm, this is an interesting case! I think it must hinge on whether or not the guy actually acted to cause the invitation, or whether this was an automatic google thing based on previous emails between the two accounts. If it was simply an automatic "add these people from your past emails" notification, then it seems very unreasonable to hold him to account for it. Sounds like the defendant needs a witness from Google about how Google+ works - which will almost certainly be difficult to get!

atmosx 13y ago

Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request. That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order. I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and lawyers loose common sense the minute they start practicing.

rayiner 13y ago
A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's whether the person under the restraining order tried to initiate contact with the person being protected by the restraining order.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I actually know jack-shit about Google+. I assumed what the article was talking about was like a Facebook friend request where you have to individually invite a specific person. Will Google+ really just randomly spam people you've had e-mail conversations with?
    - cbhl 13y ago
      Facebook can and does "randomly spam" people you've had e-mail conversations with if you let them at your address book.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        True, and furthermore, services like this (FB, G+, LI, etc.) have every incentive to escalate their involuntary contacts over time. Every once in a while they'll go too far too quickly and have to backtrack due to public outcry, but there won't be any outcry about the plight of alleged order-violators. In general you should expect every service that knows your name and any other person's contact info to send that person many messages on your behalf without your consent. It will be nice when the courts figure this out; I don't expect it to take them more than twenty years.
        rayiner 13y ago
        > It will be nice when the courts figure this out; I don't expect it to take them more than twenty years. It would be even nicer if courts put a stop to this madness.
        jessaustin 13y ago
        Eh, maybe. I can't really picture a law forbidding automated email that wouldn't have horrible consequences for most citizens. Perhaps the courts ought to just accept that the world changes and change along with it?
- xtirpation 13y ago
  You're right of course, but I struggle to view the world in such a black-and-white manner to be honest especially when there are black boxes like in play, Google+'s source code in this case. How much proof would have to be provided that the Google+ invitation was sent deliberately by the user? Sworn testimony from a Google employee? There can of course exist bugs that send invites erroneously that nobody knows about. Revealing of the source code and analysis by experts? Unknown bugs can still exist, especially in systems as large as Google's. Stepping back from this particular case, what about apps that scan your contact list and automatically send invites and/or messages? These situations aside, it's far too easy to accidentally send an invitation. Hell, I don't doubt that many people reflexively agree to prompts on websites they think they're familiar with. Of course the argument can be made that people with restraining orders must be more careful, but it just doesn't seem sane to me that people can get jail time for clicking a button on a prompt that most people wouldn't think twice about.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    When someone has taken a restraining order out you've lost your rights to shades of grey. The order is designed to be black and white to provide clear, firm, boundaries over which you will not pass. Before the restraining order there are several levels of allowance which let people obey the spirit (no contact) or to experiment with boundaries. When under a restraining order you need to take special steps to ensure complyance.
    - xtirpation 13y ago
      Sure, I agree that special steps should be taken, but in our age of automatic/transparent updates and data longevity I think we need to re-evaluate the immediate responses taken by law enforcement when restraining orders are violated. It's not at all far-fetched for scenarios where apps automatically send messages to current/previous contacts without the user's consent (in fact we've seen this time and time again). Should the immediate response really be to jail the offender, especially if the process for proving intention one way or another can be long and arduous? Because if that's the case, what we're really asking is for people with restraining orders to become technology-shunning luddites since they can't guarantee the apps they use won't have mined their connections in the past, or that apps they've stopped using after the restraining order don't send messages on their behalf.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > A restraining order means no contact, period. No, a restraining order means whatever the restraining order says. A restraining order may or may not say "no contact, period" (and, in fact, it is unlikely to say "no contact, period", especially in the case of a TRO which is always issued in the context of a lawsuit between the parties, which necessarily requires contact by certain channels). > A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact A request to link accounts that isn't initiated by the person who is a subject of order, even if it is presented to the person who is protected by the order by an online service as an invitation to connect to the subject of the order cannot, OTOH, be a violation of the restraining order, as there is no act by the subject of the order involved.
jessaustin 13y ago
...judges/prosecutors... [lose] common sense the minute they start practicing. The system actually selects for the most vindictive, Procrustean, authoritarian candidates for these positions. So if you're an attorney with an ounce of decency or common sense, you don't even get the chance to "lose" that as a judge or prosecutor, because you never become one of those.
darklrd 13y ago
I think Google+ auto sends an invite when you add someone to a specific circle.
mcv 13y ago
> That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. There's no such thing as a "friend request" in G+. You can follow someone, which means you get to see their public posts. The other person will get a notification of that, but won't see anything you post. Of course the other person can decide to follow you, and then you get to also see their non-public posts that they share with a circle you're in. And of course they get to see your posts (public and appropriate circles). But even if people don't follow you, G+ can still suggest that you might want to follow them. And this being Google, that could probably be based on the fact that you emailed each other a lot 2 years ago. So the big question here is: was it a notification that the restrainee followed the restrainer? Or was it Google inadvertently suggesting that the restrainer might want to follow the restrainee?

DateK 13y ago

Collateral damage?

tjgq 13y ago

The article focuses mainly on whether the man did indeed send the Google+ invitation to his former girlfriend. It seems to me that the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order. The bar is far too low when receiving a single inconsequential message that you have full ability to ignore can be considered a form of harassment.

rmc 13y ago
If the restraining order says "Don't contact them", then it makes sense that if you manually triggered an invite that would break the order.
ronilan 13y ago
> the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order. In America we, the people, go to court to get answers to tough questions. Easy questions we google.
buro9 13y ago
A restraining order is against any form of contact. You (and I) don't know the circumstances that led to the restraining order. There may have been violence, intimidation, harassment, abuse. This may even form part of a consistent pattern of abuse. The woman in this case may feel so traumatised by any reminder of her ex, or contact from him, that the act of receiving an email from him (on his behalf) may actually be deeply upsetting and disturbing. It may undo any efforts she has put in place to move on with her life, and restore her to the place of being abused. If a court has put in place a restraining order then there is no acceptable basis for the ex to contact her. Including whether that contact is via an automated email on his behalf. I'm with the v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶ court on this. Someone is to blame, and the bar isn't too low. I do think that a decision like this will cause Google to evaluate the impact of any automated emails. I also think that if you get a restraining order against you it's not enough to lazily avoid contact with the other person, you should proactively ensure that you do not contact the other person... so purge your address book if need be, the court has made it your responsibility to not contact the other person.

awk23 13y ago

I understand what the author is trying to say but there is an awful lot of "perhaps" punctuating all the G+ bashing he manages to fit in that post. I'm guessing the relevant evidence will be reveled in court. Also worth discussing if an invitation email, automated or otherwise, should be considered a restraining order violation.

voidr 13y ago

Just opened up Google+ on a 15" Mac Book Pro in Chrome and all I see is whitespace and "You may know", "Interesting people and pages" and other useless crap, what I'm not seeing is my feed. Only around 10% of the screen space is used for things I care about, it really baffles me how Google thinks that this is a contender against Facebook. They should realise that spamming people won't make them like their horrible UI. Edit: Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4889ilnwfmplu0l/Screenshot%202014-01-09%2011.42.25.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/4889ilnwfmplu0l/Screenshot%202014-...

DominikR 13y ago
Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really? With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook. And how does your comment have anything to do with the article?
- tim333 13y ago
  Out of curiosity I just opened my g+ on a 1280 x 800 thinkpad and counted pixels and 17% was feed with my normal settings. Actually by changing the text size you can vary the percent of screen your feed takes from 0% to a max of about 75%. Facebook has a fair bit of empty space too.
- voidr 13y ago
  > Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really? > With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook. Look at the screenshot I posted on the original content. The point of my comment was that Google should focus on making their product actually usable instead of trying to carve out some market share by brute force.
  - DominikR 13y ago
    > Look at the screenshot I posted on the original content. Seems to be a new (or inactive) G+ account that is following few (if any) active users. What are you honestly expecting to see in your newsfeed?

tluyben2 13y ago

I watch American tv shows and movies and am well aware of restraining orders but thought it was something very rare and almost never happens; now I read this. Is it that normal to get one 'after a breakup'? I have never heard anything like that in my country except for hardcore, life threatening criminal situations. Is it that easy to get one there and you actually get rounded up and hauled to a cell for violating while you are just 'contacting'?

rjknight 13y ago
If it sounds unlikely, then there's probably more to the story. We don't know what happened between them that caused a judge to believe the order to be necessary, but I presume that such orders are not given lightly.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  You presume incorrectly in the case of a temporary restraining order. These can be and are granted without a hearing from the restrained party: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Temporary+Restraining+Order http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Temporary+Rest... http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/faqs/violence.asp http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/faqs/violen...
- tluyben2 13y ago
  Well I presume that as well; I hope someone here has experience with that and can tell how hard it is? Because I just had that 'wow!' experience ; it feels like they hand them out at the police station to anyone asking :) I know they are not, but some 'actual', non media enlarged information would be great!
  - ZoFreX 13y ago
    I'm confused as to why you are under the impression that restraining orders are 'normal', or that they hand them out to anyone asking, based on a single data point of one person getting one restraining order?

Suro 13y ago

Why did the former girlfriend did not block the profile ? Google may have not advertised this feature but it doesn't look like hard to find...

RexRollman 13y ago
Because putting him in jail was more appealing to her?
mcv 13y ago
Blocking does not prevent him from seeing her public posts, though. She may not notice, but you could still argue it's a form of stalking. And because of that notification, she now knows.

blueskin_ 13y ago

Moral of the story: Don't use google+.

Jgrubb 13y ago
The story was that the "perp" claims he didn't even send the invite, that Google must've generated it for him. The moral of the story is that you might be a user of G+ and not even know it. Read the article before boiling it down for us.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  From TFA, a perfect example of how joining G+ could lead to this predicament: And by default, when someone joins Google+ and that person is in your Gmail contacts, Google will automatically send you a notification, along with an invitation suggesting that you "add him [or her] to your Circles to stay connected." In such a scenario, the alleged unrestrained person could be held responsible for the fact that his alleged target had received emails from him at any time in the past, such as before the order was requested or before they even "broke up". It may well be that there are other scenarios that require even less interaction.
dredmorbius 13y ago
Leastways: not with your real name.

mseebach 13y ago

It's about a violation of a restraining order. In other news, taking a step lands man in jail.

fridek 13y ago

I guess guy added her to his circles expecting a twitter-like model of following as a means of mild (or not) stalking. It's not that surprising that she got notified, but it would be great if "never send any email on my behalf" option existed in social networks.

sedha 13y ago
On Twitter you also get notified by email when someone follows you, only the recipient can opt out of this behaviour (which as it should be).

jhgg 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if she mistook the "People you may know" notification for an from someone add them to your circles on G+.

icebraining 13y ago
Well, she and the cops, since she "went down to the local police station with a print-out of the invitation".
- Jare 13y ago
  I don't think many people can understand half of what Google's UIs are trying to do or say anymore, even while we interact and use them. I wouldn't expect your local cops to be more knowledgeable from a printout.

deleted 13y ago

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drdaeman 13y ago

I wonder if restraining orders apply to third parties contacting on behalf of the restrained person? Suppose, it's violation only if it's proven that the person willingly made third party to make contact? (Otherwise it's nearly trivial to put anyone under a restraining order to courtroom, huh.)

einhverfr 13y ago
If they did, the third party would have a right to be told about it proactively and a right to contest it. I am betting there is no jurisdiction that does this.

philbarr 13y ago

I have a friend who works the emergency telephone line and is getting increasingly frustrated with calls regarding Facebook. A typical call will have the caller complain that, "[person x] has written something horrible on my wall!" So he says, "hang on? They've written on your wall? So you're friends with them?! Just un-friend them!" In fact in a recent review he was told off for groaning loudly on the telephone when someone mentioned Facebook. However, you can see that if Google+ continues with it's desperate push for market share like this, there will be more and more instances like that in the article. People really won't know how to properly eliminate others from the online social lives, as easily as just "un-friending" them.

deleted 13y ago
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sedha 13y ago
G+ did nothing out of the ordinary here (if indeed it did anything, there is plenty of guess work in that post) Facebook friending and Twitter following have landed many a person in jail, none of these services got this sort of blame for it. When adding someone to your circle they get an email notification, same as when you follow someone on Twitter they get an email telling them that, But suddenly in G+ it's 'aggressive'?! sensationalism and blaming one service for something that is done by all and is mainly innocuous is bad form. And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading.
- fuzzix 13y ago
  > "And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading" Does it ever send individual invites without explicit and clear consent or without explicit action by the user?
  - sedha 13y ago
    Not in my experience. Only the 'such and such added you to their circles' notifications.

Joeboy 13y ago

It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened. The problem here seems to be that the man was held accountable for a breach of such an order that was both minimal and unintentional. I would guess that the law takes this possibility into account, and the police involved probably should have rejected the woman's complaint as vexatious, if that was the entire basis of her complaint.

adekok 13y ago
> It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened. The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high. "My partner hit me!" And he's out. The courts are required to have a hearing within 30 days. Call the court and ask for that, and you'll be laughed at. 6 months later, the accusation is dropped. In the mean time you've lost your house, kids, and likely your job. DoS attacks aren't limited to computers. When we make it easier to do something... we get more of that behavior. Both good and bad.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  > The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high. And that is terrible, but I am not necessarily sure it is net terrible. To decide that, we would need to compare it with the terribleness of having no expedient legal recourse when you reasonably fear a partner might harass, assault or kill you. I've no doubt the implementation details suck though. Ninja edit: Words.
  - adekok 13y ago
    > we would need to compare it with the terribleness of having no expedient legal recourse ... We largely have this data. Historically there were no TROs, and domestic violence was higher than it is today. However, there is no evidence that domestic violence is lower as a result of the "easy TRO" process. Instead, we see that incidence of all violent crimes have plunged in the past 30 years. I would wager that domestic violence rates fell in conjunction with overall violence rates. And that TROs had little, if any, impact on them. This would mean that TROs are likely to be net negative, because they add a new negative of false accusations.

X4 13y ago

Does that only apply to the USA and UK? That is almost like "thought crime", when you look dangerous, or have similarity with someone portrayed in the media as the "bad guy". Can a person "feeling" intimidated by your look or presence sue you too? That would be ridiculous and put everyone into constant pressure to "look normal" I think.

DanBC 13y ago

A similar case happened in uk where a man sent facebook friend requests to everyone in his email list, which included his ex wife who had a restraining order againts him. On mobil so links in a while.

jellicle 13y ago

Judge: do not contact this woman. Man: {apparently continues harassing her} Police: {enforce} Not seeing what the problem is here. The question of whether he actually did attempt to contact her is a fact-based one for the courts... Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court.

einhverfr 13y ago
> Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court. And all he has to do to win is raise reasonable doubt. Get a friend to say "I did it as a prank, and he told me not to." No restraining order violated.
- aestra 13y ago
  Really? I think that's the legal equivalent of your mom saying "of course he couldn't have committed that murder, he was with me that night, we were watching Netflix."
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    The prosecution had better have forensic evidence proving your mom wrong in that case.
- rmc 13y ago
  Sure, but you've have to prove it in court. The criminal justice system is used to sorting out claimed alibi's. I'm doubtful you have discovered some novel hack to the justice system.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    No. That's not how it works. They'd have to prove you wrong. "I didn't do it" is not an affirmative defence.

Pxtl 13y ago

sigh, and with this comment thread, Hacker News has completed its transformation into Reddit. Well, that and the multi-day outage. So, where to next?

DanBC 13y ago
Re-read the guidines about accounts less than a year and Reddit. You're right about the flood of MRAs from reddit. But flag the submissions you think don't belong here and up ote the submissions that do belong here.

stesch 13y ago

BTW: http://storify.com/joliss/what-happens-when-our-software-has-broken-privacy http://storify.com/joliss/what-happens-when-our-software-has...