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Google Calendar Is Down

calendar.google.com

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Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#171

Post by toss1 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #156
toss1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, multiple downvotes for an accurate recounting of an observed event contradicting a parent assertion, yet no one provides any new info? I don't expect any upvotes, but what am I missing here? Is there something against posting actual data and events?

What you're describing isn't an advertisement, so isn't at all relevant to the discussion. It's well known (and not at all secret) that google will grab upcoming flight info from emails and put it into your calendar. But this info still isn't used for ad targeting.

Thanks for the explanation.

However, I was describing the deceptive advertisement that came along with the flight->calendar populating feature (which is fine).

The advertisement that Google added to my calendar was an auto-populated fake hotel reservation.

It was setup to look as if I'd previously reserved rooms but had simply failed to confirm the final ccard info -- the click-thru literally went straight to the enter ccard info page with my "reservation" prepopulated.

This was trying to hijack any other reservation that I might have intended to make (of course it was really obvious to me since we were staying w/relatives).

Let's be clear:

Adding a "need a hotel?" link to my calendar might be ok.

Populating my calendar with an item for a business I've never even contacted is an advertisement.

Falsely claiming I've already made a reservation when I've never even contacted the business is a lie. It is a deceptive practice.

I was genuinely surprised to see this level of both advertising and deception from Google.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#172

Post by gumby »

ma2rten wrote: post #100
opencl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Google made any public statements about whether or not calendar data is used for ad targeting? Gmail was used for ad targeting until mid-2017[1] but I haven't seen anything about calendar. [1] https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in...

Afaik, it was never used for ad targeting so there was no announcement to make. Just think about it for minute. What percentage of people actively use Google Calendar? Out of those what percentage put useful information in there? How much commercial value does this information have?

You have access to their appointment graph from all the calendar invitations sent, especially with attendees list. You have access to meetings I am invited to even though I don't have a google account since my email address appears in invitations.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#173

Post by joshuamorton »

toss1 wrote: post #171
joshuamorton wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing isn't an advertisement, so isn't at all relevant to the discussion. It's well known (and not at all secret) that google will grab upcoming flight info from emails and put it into your calendar. But this info still isn't used for ad targeting.

Thanks for the explanation. However, I was describing the deceptive advertisement that came along with the flight->calendar populating feature (which is fine). The advertisement that Google added to my calendar was an auto-populated fake hotel reservation. It was setup to look as if I'd previously reserved rooms but had simply failed to confirm the final ccard info -- the click-thru literally went straight to the ent…

What you're describing is a bug. It may be due to something you did and didn't realize, it may be due to something the site you were reserving things on did and didn't realize, it may be due to a bug in how Calendar parses reservation emails. But its a bug somewhere along the process. It's not an intentional advertisement.

So you're being downvoted for claiming to have been the target of an unrealistic sounding advertisement campaign that, it seems, no one else has ever been targeted by. This, at Google scale, is pretty unlikely.

To give a recent similar example from HN, a user was complaining that google was incorrectly tracking their watch history on YouTube. In reality, they had been infected with malware that watched YouTube videos in the background. Your story gives me the same vibe, and that's likely why people are downvoting.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#174

Post by the-rc »

toss1 wrote: post #171
joshuamorton wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing isn't an advertisement, so isn't at all relevant to the discussion. It's well known (and not at all secret) that google will grab upcoming flight info from emails and put it into your calendar. But this info still isn't used for ad targeting.

Thanks for the explanation. However, I was describing the deceptive advertisement that came along with the flight->calendar populating feature (which is fine). The advertisement that Google added to my calendar was an auto-populated fake hotel reservation. It was setup to look as if I'd previously reserved rooms but had simply failed to confirm the final ccard info -- the click-thru literally went straight to the ent…

This is not "advertising and deception from Google", it's a spam/scam/phishing campaign.

https://www.wired.com/story/phishing-links-google-calendar-i...

Similar attacks have been directed at iCloud users, too.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#175

Post by MattSayar »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #132

Writing your own little personal-use web apps can be really nice - not sure how common this is, but I highly recommend it. I did it for tasks, time tracking, invoicing, and personal finances, partly because Google and others kept "upgrading" and screwing up the UI & performance of the tools I was relying on. Each took about a day to write, and is customized exactly the way I like it; if I need a shortcut key, a weird…

That's a cool project, and it's a cool trick to avoid a dependency on a large company's app. Buuut There's always going to be a dependency on your ISP, your web hosting provider's internet access and their hardware uptime/backup schedule, your neighborhood's telephone poles and wires, your utility company, your hosting company's utility company, etc. etc. etc.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and I try not to think about how fragile it all really is all the time.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#176

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

manigandham wrote: post #54

This is especially chaotic for business GSuite users. Wonder if there's an offline/local cache service available for cloud-hosted systems, that would be a good middle-ground between local control and cloud-backed scale.

This is the reality of offshoring your business infrastructure to the cloud. Yes, it can fail, and when it does you will have nothing to do but shout into the wind. You have no control over anything that could cause an outage, nor do you have any ability to fix it.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#177

Post by toss1 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #173
toss1 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanation. However, I was describing the deceptive advertisement that came along with the flight->calendar populating feature (which is fine). The advertisement that Google added to my calendar was an auto-populated fake hotel reservation. It was setup to look as if I'd previously reserved rooms but had simply failed to confirm the final ccard info -- the click-thru literally went straight to the ent…

What you're describing is a bug. It may be due to something you did and didn't realize, it may be due to something the site you were reserving things on did and didn't realize, it may be due to a bug in how Calendar parses reservation emails. But its a bug somewhere along the process. It's not an intentional advertisement. So you're being downvoted for claiming to have been the target of an unrealistic sounding adver…

A bug was my first thought too. Except:

I had never made a reservation, never even searched for a hotel, as we were staying with relatives. So, there is zero chance that it had anything to do with other searches or reservation attempts, and the flights were made directly at the airline site (i.e., not through Google Flights or a travel aggregator).

The advert populated in the same time-frame as the flight; the airline's flight confirmation email to my Gmail acct had clearly been was parsed, and there was nothing in the email having to do with a hotel.

Moreover, when I clicked thru and found the menus, Google settings pages were there, offering to enable/disable the feature, along with describing that the "helpful" auxiliary reservation feature could not be turned off separately, and providing a feedback opportunity.

My recollection is that this advertisement itself also came with a google message about how this was a helpful new feature to complete my travel palns.

Obviously I turned it off, and slammed them in the feedback, in particular how I couldn't manage the sub-features (actual vs advertised reservations) separately.

Neither item ever happened again, which I would expect having turned off the feature. Which also indicates that this was something under Google's control as opposed to an infection or bug.

My guess is that this is a short-lived experiment, gathered a lot of the kind of feedback I gave, and was cut off by one of their smarter managers.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#178

Post by toss1 »

the-rc wrote: post #174
toss1 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanation. However, I was describing the deceptive advertisement that came along with the flight->calendar populating feature (which is fine). The advertisement that Google added to my calendar was an auto-populated fake hotel reservation. It was setup to look as if I'd previously reserved rooms but had simply failed to confirm the final ccard info -- the click-thru literally went straight to the ent…

This is not "advertising and deception from Google", it's a spam/scam/phishing campaign. https://www.wired.com/story/phishing-links-google-calendar-i... Similar attacks have been directed at iCloud users, too.

Plausible, but unlikely

1) This occurred in exactly the same set of minutes since the email direct from the airline arrived and Google parsed it and posted the flight info to my calendar

2) The hotel locations and dates for the fake reservation were exactly matched to the airline travel dates.

It is also possible to win the lottery, but to post such an exactly targeted advertisement is for all practical purposes impossible without access to the email. Only three parties had access to it: The airline, me, and Google.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#179

Post by jedberg »

sp332 wrote: post #170
faissaloo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikr, Instagram recently went down too, what's going on with FANG recently? Back a few years ago things like this would be unheard of

In what year exactly did none of Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google have a service outage like this?

As the person most closely responsible for Netflix’s nines from 2011-2014, definitely not 2011-2014!

We worked hard and managed to keep it pretty high, but in all that time I think we only had two or three perfect weeks worldwide.

Re: Google Calendar Is Down

#180

Post by [deleted] »

MattSayar wrote: post #175
QuadrupleA wrote: post #132

Writing your own little personal-use web apps can be really nice - not sure how common this is, but I highly recommend it. I did it for tasks, time tracking, invoicing, and personal finances, partly because Google and others kept "upgrading" and screwing up the UI & performance of the tools I was relying on. Each took about a day to write, and is customized exactly the way I like it; if I need a shortcut key, a weird…

That's a cool project, and it's a cool trick to avoid a dependency on a large company's app. Buuut There's always going to be a dependency on your ISP, your web hosting provider's internet access and their hardware uptime/backup schedule, your neighborhood's telephone poles and wires, your utility company, your hosting company's utility company, etc. etc. etc. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and I try not to…

[deleted]
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