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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

#61

Post by pavs »

dkersten wrote: post #53
pavs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list. To the best of my knowledge they prompt you and ask you who you want to follow. This was the case for me. They don't automatically follow - unless you click the OK button. Turning off buzz is literally one click away at the bottom of the screen. I know because I used it.

Not for me. They just said "The following people have been added automatically..." At least, I did not manually add anyone and I had a bunch of people added.

I am pretty sure you are mistaken. This is the prompt everyone got when they went to buzz for the first time: http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goog...

This is also shown in the Google buzz demo video.

Responsibility lies on you when you decide not to edit the follow users and check privacy setting when its right in front of you the first time. The only way forward is to click OK, thats what you did like everyone else who is complaining and going ra ra about privacy.

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

#62

Post by lucifer »

jasonlotito wrote: post #32
rwhitman wrote: post #6

There are clearly no longer any humans working at google, just one giant heartless inhuman machine calling the shots... Or at least thats how Google looks to the public these days. If thats the perception they want, they got it. I think this Buzz privacy fiasco is an historic lesson in the convergence of humanity and software and the lesson learned is that privacy of personal relationships should be a fundamental rig…

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.

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

#63

Post by pmjordan »

griftah wrote: post #42
bad_user wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only calm and reasonable people should be listened to? Of course she's having issues. We all do. That's how it is in the real world ;) ... and some of us are extroverts, sharing our feelings with others. But it doesn't mean that if I have a message for Fred, everybody should read it ... and normal people don't know how to protect themselves, that's why this whole trend on "public by default" taken by Google and other…

If you have a message for Fred, send it to Fred privately. Don't share it with whole world.

This is the point. Her messages were private until Google enabled buzz without asking, automatically followed people and let them follow her, and shared her Google Reader stuff.

It did the same to my account, I didn't even realize it until I read the article.

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

#64

Post by sp332 »

pavs wrote: post #61
dkersten wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for me. They just said "The following people have been added automatically..." At least, I did not manually add anyone and I had a bunch of people added.

I am pretty sure you are mistaken. This is the prompt everyone got when they went to buzz for the first time: http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goog... This is also shown in the Google buzz demo video. Responsibility lies on you when you decide not to edit the follow users and check privacy setting when its right in front of you the first time. The only way forward is to click OK, thats what you…

Look, people aren't making this stuff up. I'm not sure of the circumstances yet (maybe just the first batch?), but there are a lot of people who were automatically added to Buzz without a prompt.

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

DTrejo wrote: post #48
JulianMorrison wrote: post #18

One thing that certainly is true about this: there's no simple, obvious single place to tune all your Google privacy settings. I've found how to do it, but I had to look under cushions and behind the sofa, so to speak.

Where is it?

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by matasar »

dkersten wrote: post #59
GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, first of all, whether it's free or not is pretty much irrelevant. This is a business for Google - they're taking people's personal information and using it to make billions of dollars in advertising. I don't think it would be hard to convince a jury that they have a duty to make a reasonable effort to protect the information that has been entrusted to their care.

convince a jury But this would be a civil case, right? There is only a Jury if its a criminal case. EDIT: I stand corrected.

That's not true. Civil cases can have a jury.

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

#67

Post by matrix »

drusenko wrote: post #28
rapind wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet somehow for a while I had a personal account linked with my domain account, but the passwords were different... The behavior isn't that of the least surprise I've come to expect from google.

tl;dr: google accounts are really confusing here's what's most confusing. there's a "google account", that can be any email address (including a google apps for your domain email). this is not the same as a gmail account, it's just a "google account". this type of account can use almost every service (except for gmail, and probably a few others), and it's a personal account. it's so distinct from your "business"/doma…

The worst part of all? Google's own properties handle these different types of accounts poorly. Google App Engine in particular will lock you out if you inadvertently have an administrator with a Google Account and Goodle Domain Account with the same email address.

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

#68

Post by pilif »

I wonder... before buzz, her ex-husband could also have followed her, probably without her ever noticing. Now that buzz generated, well, buzz, she found out about it and now can actually take mesures to block her ex.

While I see dubious value of automatically setting often mailing addresses to following (this should not have been the case, IMHO), I have a feeling that the much more visible follow-relationships right now might actually be an improvement to the older situation where you never really knew who was following whom, as right now, you actually have a chance to find out about it.

(also as a preventive measure: I'm not trying to troll. I understand her and I'm feeling bad for her, but I would really like to discuss whether this can't actually be some kind of a good thing as she at least knows that he's following her now)

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

#69

Post by roqetman »

EricBurnett wrote: post #51

I think the point most people are missing is that the data Google shared was already public . Reader has its own privacy and sharing policies, and as far as I can tell Buzz respects these. Even if this person successfully polices Buzz, the reader feed is still out there, public and waiting to be found. Reader privacy settings can be changed at https://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#friends-manager-p...

I agree - I don't have a public profile setup, so nothing was added to buzz for me.

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

#70

Post by jfager »

illumin8 wrote: post #21

I'm trying to understand how this is a problem. Surely, it doesn't matter who is following you, as long as you don't post through Buzz. This sounds like someone complaining about wierdos following you on Twitter. Nobody is forcing you to tweet. If you don't want to publish your life to the world, then don't.

When you sign up to twitter, you know what you're getting into, and you act accordingly - maybe you use an anonymous handle, maybe you only share certain things, maybe you keep your account private, etc.

When you signed up for Gmail and Reader accounts, you thought you were getting email and RSS, and you acted differently than you would for a twitter account. For Google to suddenly invert those expectations is jarring and unwelcome, and to expose personal information derived from activities undertaken with particular expectations in place is a complete betrayal of trust. I still can't believe how stupid Google was about this.

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