Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#1

Post by mrblampo » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 2:25 AM UTC

I.e. comments that are literal spam, from accounts I've never heard of, on documents I've never seen, but where I am tagged. And they always mention some Bitcoin transaction whose funds are now available, in or similar.

Has anyone found a way to make this stop?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#2

Post by kdamica » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:57 AM UTC

Not lots but I’ve gotten it a few times. There seems to be no way to prevent it. Every time I send a detailed report to Google. No idea whether anyone sees them.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#3

Post by hoyd » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:50 AM UTC

I've experienced that too.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#4

Post by dvno42 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:25 AM UTC

Uninstalling google drive from my phone helped a lot. I was getting daily junk, mostly in russian. SMS is a constant though.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#5

Post by taubek » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 12:39 PM UTC

I get calendar ivites with attached files sometimes.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#6

Post by cableshaft » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

No, but I do keep getting daily notifications in Russian on my google calendar at like 11:30 at night, that I've tried to remove multiple times (including unchecking something in gmail that lets it automagically create google calendar entries based on events it detects in your email) and it still keeps coming back.

I've pretty much just given up on it now, I kind of use it as a reminder to go to bed at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else getting lots of Google Docs comment spam?

#7

Post by jfoster » Sun, Feb 26, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

This seems built into pretty much every Google product at the moment; Calendar, Drive, Photos, GChat.

Gmail also seems to be letting through more spam in recent years.

It's surprising because I thought spam was in some ways in competition with Google; spammers get traffic without buying ads.

Are Google just too mediocre to do anything about this?