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Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

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Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#131

Post by jasonlotito »

lucifer wrote: post #62
jasonlotito wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the problem is. I have complete control over the privacy settings of all my accounts. After reading the post, I think the problem is the poster made a choice before this not to use the privacy features.

When you have HN readers complaining about this issue, then we can be fairly certain that the average user of Google's products will have a very difficult time finding their way to the "privacy features" controls, and in effect Google has already made these privacy decisions for them.

Being an HN reader doesn't make someone immune to being wrong. At some point, the user has to take responsibility. Every complaint I've read that discusses this has mentioned not using Google Profiles to modify privacy settings previously. Either that, or it wasn't mentioned at all.

So, I go back to what I was saying: did anyone using the privacy settings available have their privacy setting explicitly overridden, or was is just people not using the privacy settings available, and then getting run over when they realized what they had allowed opened?

Edit: I get downvoted for asking questions. Apparently, not following the torch-bearers blindly is frowned on.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#132

Post by rbanffy »

danparsonson wrote: post #44
rbanffy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why didn't they do any sort of staged roll-out or opt-in I distinctly remember to have clicked in something like "I want to use buzz" before having it enabled

You get the intro page with a button at the bottom ("Sweet! Check out Buzz!") but the feature is automatically enabled.

As always, beware of geeks carrying gifts.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#133

Post by ConceptDog »

algorias wrote: post #125
ConceptDog wrote: post #112

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 s…

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.

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.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#134

Post by jrockway »

I don't get the outrage. Is there some flag in GMail that you flip to say "this person is stalking me, pretend they don't exist"? No.

So at this point, her public comments are being shared with one of the people that she talks to the most. This is a problem, but it's not something Google could have avoided.

My advice is to block this person, stop commenting on blogs if it is going to endanger her life (or use real anonynimization tools), and get a restraining order against the person she fears. People are easy to get rid of if you put enough effort into it, but what I've noticed from reading Ask Metafilter (and other things) is that people enjoy having problems and don't actually want to solve them. I feel that this person is doing the same thing, "drama drama me me me".

Let the downmods begin...

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#135

Post by AdamN »

jamesjyu wrote: post #103
tom_rath wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time travel would be spiffy, but how easy is it to contact the Buzz engineers now? If you've ever dealt with Google "technical support" (even if you're a customer who shovels them buckets of cash each week) you'll find that it's nearly impossible to reach an actual human being who can help you. Convoluted as it is, getting a blog post ranked top in Hacker News seems the easiest (only?) way to get a genuine Google iss…

Actually, a friend and I were having a big discussion about Buzz, using Buzz. And, to my surprise, a few Buzz devs jumped into the conversation: http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google...

That's nice that they care more about UI than privacy.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#136

Post by ConceptDog »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #120
ConceptDog wrote: post #112

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 s…

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 wit…

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.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#137

Post by dkersten »

snorkel wrote: post #98
dkersten wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn Buzz off on the bottom of your gmail page and privacy settings can be found at https://www.google.com/accounts/ though I still found it awkward and unintuitive really.

I don't see any mention of Buzz in any of my Gmail accounts settings pages. Please tell me I would've had to consciously enable Buzz in order to have the option to turn it off. Please tell me Google is not automatically making my Google account a Buzz account too.

Nope, theres no mention of Buzz in the accounts setting or the gmail settings. They automatically enabled it for me and I had to hunt to find the disable link in a non-standard (for their apps) place. I'm not very happy about this, honestly.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#138

Post by jfager »

jamesbritt wrote: post #111
pasbesoin wrote: post #99

Amen. A close family member has spent the past decade going to sometimes extreme measures to avoid an abusive ex-spouse. Google has potentially pre-emptively revealed their contact information; and not through their own choices and/or lack of action (on zero notice, spending perhaps hours wandering through a plenitude of scattered and poorly documented Buzz settings and behaviors -- please!). No: Any email contact wh…

"And you will terminate them. Anything less, and we can do no more than expect similar bad decisions -- from those same people -- in the future." I'm not looking to defend Google's choices about Buzz. But I take exception to the idea of firing people who make bad decisions without due consideration for how those decisions came about. It flies in the face of a mantra at HN: Fail early and often. It goes against the id…

It flies in the face of a mantra at HN: Fail early and often. It goes against the idea that you learn by making mistakes.

When you're a young, tiny startup, you can fail early and often because the costs of doing so are outweighed by the benefit of the education you get, both to yourself and to society at large.

This is Google. It's huge, it's been around the block a few times, it's already had a ton of failures, and millions of people rely on it. It can't and shouldn't have the same latitude to fail, especially in an area as important as privacy.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#139

Post by mattmanser »

ConceptDog wrote: post #136
waterlesscloud wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

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 w…

There is a MASSIVE difference between not knowing and not caring.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#140

Post by jfager »

jasonlotito wrote: post #131
lucifer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have HN readers complaining about this issue, then we can be fairly certain that the average user of Google's products will have a very difficult time finding their way to the "privacy features" controls, and in effect Google has already made these privacy decisions for them.

Being an HN reader doesn't make someone immune to being wrong. At some point, the user has to take responsibility. Every complaint I've read that discusses this has mentioned not using Google Profiles to modify privacy settings previously. Either that, or it wasn't mentioned at all. So, I go back to what I was saying: did anyone using the privacy settings available have their privacy setting explicitly overridden, or…

This morning, I've watched two coworkers open their gmail accounts for the first time since Buzz went live. In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways, and a bunch of people were listed as following/followers. We looked at their profiles, and all the followers/ees were publicly listed.

What, exactly, should they have done to keep this from happening?

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