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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

#181

Post by raquo »

fnid2 wrote: post #161
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

This is the sort of thing that was absolutely predictable.

If you are certain that this was absolutely predictable, you are implying either: a) The Google Buzz people are so stupid that they couldn't have predicted this absolutely predictable thing (no one else did that I know of until it bit them) or b) they knew this would happen and chose to allow it to happen in the bad times hoping the love they'd get from those who like it would be greater than the pain experienced by…

So you say that a team of engineers does not understand that most frequent contacts != those whom I wish to share my stuff with? Are edge cases like the original post hard to predict? Did they do any testing, even with their friends/colleagues?

That doesn't sound smart to me. Either their incentives are misaligned (b) or there are some other problems.

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

#182

Post by calcnerd256 »

mattmanser wrote: post #139
ConceptDog wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the latter can cause the former

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

#183

Post by encoderer »

fnid2 wrote: post #165
petewarden wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they wouldn't. I'm saying this as somebody who built a product around identifying your 'inner circle' from your email patterns[1]. The part I spent the most time on was figuring out how to protect people's privacy, and these scenarios were painfully obvious even to me. Plenty of people at Google have to have thought this through, but decided the benefits to adoption of the current process outweigh the privacy pro…

What are the benefits? Why couldn't they just have a lightbox appear that says, "Yay! We've invented google buzz, here's a list of people we gathered from your frequent contacts in gmail. Click the check boxes by the people you want to include in your inner circle, or click here to disable Google Buzz."

well, of course, if they'd have done that, they wouldn't have been able to easily leverage their gmail base into some pseudo facebook competitor. They cannot meet their business needs AND your privacy needs at the same time. So.....

Don't be evil, indeed.

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

#184

Post by Pahalial »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #27

This is the problem when you give your personal data to big companies. They do what they want with it, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. They have the power, you do not. It was obvious with Facebook, now it becomes obvious with Google. But really, it should be obvious for any online service. Starting with web mail. "Technology Shouldn't Give Big Brother a Head Start" Bruce Schneier http://www.schne…

Honestly, Google is still allowing me to opt out at any time. They (as far as we know) use "eventual deletion," but it's still deletion. Facebook on the other hand has so far retained everything that has ever been on it, according to the interview with an employee that was on HN a few weeks ago. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1045879 )

That said, the way Buzz was introduced was definitely a leap in the wrong direction by Google.

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

#185

Post by josefresco »

tsally wrote: post #177
Flemlord wrote: post #110

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place..." -Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in 2009.

As I pointed out two months ago, this quote is taken out of context [1]. I'll reproduce the full quote here: Judgment matters... If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place... If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we…

Even taken in context that statement is still very scary. He's not saying you should use judgment on what search engine to use, he's saying you should use judgment on the action alone. The fact that he watered the statement down right after and then pulled the old "we're just following the law" doesn't make it any better.

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

#186

Post by raganwald »

shaddi wrote: post #81
raganwald wrote: post #79

Ask HN: I don't have a Google Profile, I said no thanks when Gmail asked me if I wanted to try Buzz, and I clicked "turn off buzz" at the bottom of gmail. Can anyone tell me if people can follow me in Buzz? Or if I'm following anybody? I have been clicking around in Google and I have no idea how to control this and I don't want to turn Buzz on by accident... Rant : The terrible thing is, I didn't give Buzz another th…

I've got the same question. Shoot me an email and I can try to follow you and report back; I'd appreciate if you did the same.

I set up a fake account for testing and tried to search for myself using my various email addresses. They don't seem to exist. So right now I think that setting up a Profile is the key. Once you set that up, Buzz can start sharing your information and you would have to fool around with privacy settings to shut that down.

I hope I'm mistaken about this, it would seriously suck http://rot13.com/index.php?text=fhpx%20tbng%20qvpx if your profile is the key to broadcasting news about you to everyone in your (automatically generated) address book including who is frequently mailed or mailing you.

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

#187

Post by raganwald »

stevenbedrick wrote: post #176
mbrubeck wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, open the "Buzz" label in GMail. Click on your list of followers and block all of them. Click on "connected sites" and remove any connections. Now edit your Google profile (if you have one) and remove any information that you don't want public (including "display my full name"): http://www.google.com/profiles/me/editprofile?edit=b Finally, go to the footer of the GMail site and click "turn off Buzz."

But do make sure to do these steps in that order- clicking "turn off Buzz", as far as I can tell, only keeps you from seeing Buzz-related stuff, including the Buzz privacy and follow/follower settings. It doesn't disconnect you from those followers, hide your (by default) public or shared information, etc.

At the risk of dredging up an extinct meme...

Worst. Design Choice. Ever.

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

#188

Post by edj »

cabalamat wrote: post #159
jfager wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

> 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 That's exactly what happened to me. I'm really pissed off with Google now. If they are going to throw this sort of crap at me, I will have to reconsider whether I want gmail and reader accounts.

Same thing happened to me.

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

#189

Post by Snark7 »

fnid2 wrote: post #161
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

This is the sort of thing that was absolutely predictable.

If you are certain that this was absolutely predictable, you are implying either: a) The Google Buzz people are so stupid that they couldn't have predicted this absolutely predictable thing (no one else did that I know of until it bit them) or b) they knew this would happen and chose to allow it to happen in the bad times hoping the love they'd get from those who like it would be greater than the pain experienced by…

c) http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/s/SNAFUprinciple.html

Generally speaking, it is difficult for useful information to flow in organizations. Most of the time, this lack of circulation is not remarkable, but this looks like a big deal to me, the sort of thing that gives PR people nightmares. I would wager that at least one Buzz engineer raised this concern weeks if not months ago but was ignored or pressured into backing down.

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

#190

Post by chubbard »

The choice between privacy goes something like this on the internet these days. Be apart of the internet and give up all hope of privacy, or don't participate and be a Luddite. This choice is not acceptable or practical for any future.

Google grossly underestimated how important privacy has become to average user in last year or two. Unfortunately this could have been the killer feature that Buzz could leverage over Facebook and Twitter because they do such a horrible job at it. In fact Facebook's take on privacy has become down right scary. Privacy controls for Buzz could have been it's differentiator. Instead it's turned into the killer mistake threatening to bury Buzz before it even got out of the gate.

But, everyone screws up, everyone makes mistakes, it's all about how fast they fix it. So get some pizza, jolt, and strong coffee it should be a long weekend Google Buzz Engineers.

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