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Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

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Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#211

Post by techntoke »

malka wrote: post #184
techntoke wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried opening a dummy account lately on Google? You typically need a phone number to verify, and not some VOIP number but a major carrier. That is a lot of effort for 15GB of extra data, when you can just pay $12/mo for unlimited with G Suite.

Is it that hard to get a burner number in the US ? In France it literally takes 30s to get one at a shop

Yes it is pretty difficult, and like I said they limit what phone numbers you can use. It ends up costing more money than just paying for additional storage.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#212

Post by greggyb »

BbzzbB wrote: post #100
xtracto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google support forums are terrible. Every time there is a missing feature (I usually find it in Google Spreadsheet) or a bug, the corresponding entry in the support forum would be answered with some pretext of why said feature will never be supported.

This is off topic but it reminds me, every time I look for some Windows 10 problem, it mostly leads to some Microsoft forum (answers.microsoft.com). In there however, the questions systematically get answered by a billion "MSFT specialist consultants #not working for MSFT", and it always weirds me out. Are these people there for self promotion, for the thrill of it or is it MSFT that has some reward system for third…

Getting Microsoft MVP is based, in part, on community involvement. This is one way to show community engagement.

Note, MVP is a quite valuable achievement, including licenses to pretty much all Microsoft products and access to product teams within Microsoft. Many partners will hire MVPs favorably, as well.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#213

Post by toss1 »

fpgaminer wrote: post #25

Related to this bug, some time ago I started getting spam on my Google Calendar. Not sure if Google ever fixed it, but basically Google would automatically add events to your calendar when you got an invite in your email. Honestly, it's a nice feature; saves a couple clicks every time I get an invite. The bug is that it applied even if the email was spam. There was no workaround, other than disabling the feature comp…

Another lovely Google feature that lasted for about 10sec. after I discovered it:

Booked a flight, got the receipt through Gmail. Google then auto-populated my calendar with the flights - fine. They also populated it with a hotel reservation, and a link saying I hadn't yet confirmed the reservation for Hilton. I was going to stay with family, w/no intention of staying in a hotel. I couldn't believe the blatant hijacking and spamming involved here from my private info - bad enough if they'd merely spammed a hotel advert for those dates.

Contacted Google, no way to turn it off without turning off the entire feature. Done. Permanently.

I couldn't believe anyone could think this was a good idea.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#214

Post by wiremaus »

unnouinceput wrote: post #101
malwarebytess wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still get this. It was bad enough on my "sign up for shit" email address that I had to disconnect that account from my smartphone because it kept spamming me with notifications in my calendar to "earn $1500 a week working at home!"

Considering 40h/week that would be 1500/40 = $35/h. Kinda low for a freelancer to work from home. Tell spammers their game is outdated, they should at least double it :P

That's big money for a lot of Americans, even ones using Google calendar. It's effective bait.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#215

Post by dreamcompiler »

Simulacra wrote: post #207
erichurkman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', which sounds official, but is really a Dell rep trying to sell you junk that magically pops up on your calendar _even if you mark their message as spam_. Dirty way to get by executive assistants, too.

We had someone try this at a company I worked at previously. The target was so angry they aggressively complained; the company fired the salesman. It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect.

> It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect.

Sales droids don't think the same way regular people do. A lot of them really believe everybody is as extroverted as they are and introverts are just pretending. And that everybody would be as excited about their product as they are, if they only knew about it. The best sales people can adopt the point of view of their prospects; mediocre ones cannot.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#216

Post by o-__-o »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #191
erichurkman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', which sounds official, but is really a Dell rep trying to sell you junk that magically pops up on your calendar _even if you mark their message as spam_. Dirty way to get by executive assistants, too.

> Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', If you put this shit on my calendar, I will never purchase a product from you. I will additionally, at my own discretion, use it as proof that you have had a data breach and are unable to keep your accounts safe since no real company would really do this on purpose.

For every one person who vows to never purchase their product, 10 others become useful leads.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#217

Post by rpeden »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #215
Simulacra wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had someone try this at a company I worked at previously. The target was so angry they aggressively complained; the company fired the salesman. It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect.

> It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect. Sales droids don't think the same way regular people do. A lot of them really believe everybody is as extroverted as they are and introverts are just pretending. And that everybody would be as excited about their product as they are, if they only knew about it. The best sales people can adopt the poin…

That really hasn’t been my experience when working alongside sales people at the companies I’ve worked for.

I definitely wouldn’t call any of them sales droids. Usually they’re just given really tough goals and quotas to hit.

And while none of the salespeople I’ve worked with would book unsolicited appointments, I could see it happening at companies who don’t have a very mature sales org and just throw their account managers to the sharks and expect them to make it rain.

From experience, I suspect that most salespeople who resort to invasive tactics really don’t expect everybody to be excited about their product. They are just desperately trying to keep their heads above water to avoid getting fired - a very human, non droid like thing to do.

That doesn’t excuse it, of course.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#218

Post by scubbo »

toss1 wrote: post #213
fpgaminer wrote: post #25

Related to this bug, some time ago I started getting spam on my Google Calendar. Not sure if Google ever fixed it, but basically Google would automatically add events to your calendar when you got an invite in your email. Honestly, it's a nice feature; saves a couple clicks every time I get an invite. The bug is that it applied even if the email was spam. There was no workaround, other than disabling the feature comp…

Another lovely Google feature that lasted for about 10sec. after I discovered it: Booked a flight, got the receipt through Gmail. Google then auto-populated my calendar with the flights - fine. They also populated it with a hotel reservation, and a link saying I hadn't yet confirmed the reservation for Hilton. I was going to stay with family, w/no intention of staying in a hotel. I couldn't believe the blatant hijack…

YMMV, but I personally think that's a reasonable level of intrusion. I'd prefer less; but for the convenience of "auto-populated calendar events", I'm willing to swallow a little unobtrusive upselling for a very justifiable assumption ("person who is travelling _probably_ wants a hotel").

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#219

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

o-__-o wrote: post #216
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', If you put this shit on my calendar, I will never purchase a product from you. I will additionally, at my own discretion, use it as proof that you have had a data breach and are unable to keep your accounts safe since no real company would really do this on purpose.

For every one person who vows to never purchase their product, 10 others become useful leads.

Yes, but for every person I tell that they had a data breach causing them to phish their customers through calendar, I can poison 50 people in each organization, then they can poison 50 and so forth... let's call it exponential growth of the DELL-20 coronavirus.

Re: Google Drive – How do I stop others from sharing files with me?

#220

Post by ethagnawl »

fpgaminer wrote: post #25

Related to this bug, some time ago I started getting spam on my Google Calendar. Not sure if Google ever fixed it, but basically Google would automatically add events to your calendar when you got an invite in your email. Honestly, it's a nice feature; saves a couple clicks every time I get an invite. The bug is that it applied even if the email was spam. There was no workaround, other than disabling the feature comp…

I'd been wondering about this phenomenon for years. However, it happened infrequently and was never enough of a bother to dig into.
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