Google Reader Begins Sharing Private Data

Felipe Hoffa writes "One week ago Google Reader's team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven't been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family who says they won't be able to enjoy this Christmas because of this 'feature.' Will Google start doing this with all their products? You can check a summary of complaints in my journal here or browse the whole thread in Google Groups."

Comments

Tempest in a Teapot

[X]

I'm sorry, but I'm with Google on this one. I was using Reader for a while after it was activated before I noticed it. It shares exactly what I expect with exactly who I expect. I've been using it for about a week now and I haven't felt like there was any violation of privacy.

Re:Tempest in a Teapot

[X]

Dude, it is only sharing articles that you clicked on the "share" icon for, and only with your contacts. If you never click on the share icon, nobody sees anything.

This isn't one of those international conglomerate conspiracy theories.

Re:Tempest in a Teapot

[sumdumass]

But he brings up a valid point. When ever you trust something to the whims of someone else, expect them to be the keeper of it, not you. There were plenty of people who shared with a few people under the assumption that only a few people saw it. When others in the contact list started seeing it, it created problems for them. Why? Because google at their whim change how something worked and people had the ability to access something though you that you didn't count on.

And this goes with on line documents or anything. If they change the policy because of whatever and catch you off guard, your shit out of luck. BTW, if you were a closet homo, would you want you mom and dad to see that you were sharing Gay Marriage articles with your lovers? I mean this as minor as you might think, reaches far beyond simple arguments about who cares. It goes to exemplify why you shouldn't trust anything to another person or company that can make a number of changes without notifying you.

Re:Tempest in a Teapot

[sumdumass]

Oh pulleeze. Nobody is forcing anybody to use google. When you choose a "service" run by somebody else you accept the risks involved. If you are concerned that it might change then don't use it. Build your own email server and everything else you want at home and stop whining.

That is exactly the point. You cannot trust the other guy. You need to do it yourself. And it isn't that people are forced into using Google, it is that they were charmed into a false sense of security.

It's getting harder and harder to evaluate LEGITIMATE issues with google from the people that just like to complain because they are happy when they are complaining about something thats popular.

I wouldn't consider this a legitimate issue, I would think it was more of an annoyance. But it is still an issue because people do things they don't want others to know about. And when there was an expectation of privacy, even if it was minor, when that expectation gets removes, there needs to be adequate notice given and a means to get out. Even if it means not sharing anything at all.

Re:Tempest in a Teapot

[tedrlord]

This is a problem, and it's simple and obvious if you look at it. Previously, you shared items, and your friends who knew the page could follow along. Now, you share items, and everyone who chat with or email you have that list right in front of them. Sure, your boss or mother in law could have previously searched around a while and probably found your shared list, but that violates social boundaries on their part, and you have reason to take issue with them for tracking your personal information online.

Now, if they use Reader, they have a list right in front of them of all your interests, just like you have a list in front of you of theirs. If you're into BDSM, new earth creationism, or even (god help me) square dance, it takes a click for them to find out. If that was the original intent of the service, then it's your own damn fault, but beforehand Google put some effort into making it non-obvious to find your page if you didn't know where to look. You didn't have full security, but at least you had the "Why the hell were you tracking down all my personal information at 2am last night, you weirdo?" defense if they went that far.

At first, I figured that Google entering into the social networking market was going to be a big move in their favor, and that they'd blow away the competition, but something like this makes me think that the "social" part is probably beyond their reach. I guess that's what you get when all their technology is designed by 20-somethings that live under their desks at the Googleplex.

(An aside, I live within walking distance from Google, and when you go to the Safeway on Shoreline you can actually pick out all the Google-types. Skinny young guys traveling in twos or threes, talking slightly quietly and huddled together. The fact that more often than not they're wearing Google t-shirts helps.)

Ok right....

[Phil246]

Ive just had a quick check.
There is a shared items area in my google reader, however none of my feeds are listed in there.

that is to say - they are not shared by default.
Granted, the feature is there but its hardly invading my privacy without me having a say in what can and cannot be displayed - and by default for me nothing is.

Re:Ok right....

[ironfrost]

The summary is somewhat misleading - what people are complaining about is that items in the 'shared items' area are now shared with all your gmail contacts (which automatically includes anyone with a gmail account that you have sent an email to), rather than having to manually add contacts as before.

Re:Ok right....

[JPriest]

And this would be fine if the feature was always this way, but if they are going to change the behavior of the feature to be public to anyone you have had contact with, they should at least give you some warning about it in advance.

I never "got" GMail

[pauljlucas]

One week ago Google Reader's team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts.

I never "got" why people fell all over themselves about GMail and getting a GMail account. I've kept my own domain and use it for e-mail. Should my mail provider do something I don't like, I'd move my mail to another provider and update my MX record. (FYI: my mail provider, registrar, and ISP are 3 different companies.)

Re:I never "got" GMail

[Ross Finlayson]

I agree. Serious professionals do *not* use "@gmail.com" email addresses. Sorry, they just don't. Ditto for "@yahoo.com", "@hotmail.com" etc.

If you don't want to look like a noob, then don't use "@gmail.com" email addresses.

Maybe I'm missing something

[hax0r_this]

but there seems to be a fairly obvious way to opt out. Its not sharing any of my private data, because I simply don't use the product.

If you aren't willing to give Google what they want then why should Google give you anything?

Don't bring an internet to a pissing match

[MrLint]

So I went looking for how this ruined x-mas for someone and found the link.

It seems like to me that what started out as something that was shared turned into a pissing match between already barely tolerating each other family members. I fault this summary because intentional escalation of individuals is *not* the fault of google (or anyone other than the parties involved.

Shared items are not private

[cheebie]

The laws of physics have begun exposing all of your private items to the world. In a stunning turn of events, it has been discovered that if you place things on your front lawn with a gigantic sign saying "Look at me!", people can freely see them.

"This is outrageous", screamed Peter P Hysterical on the same forum where he documents every nanosecond of his life. "There's no opt out procedure, there's no whitelisting. It's just everyone looking at all the stuff I've decided to share."

God, responding to inquiries said, "Look, if you don't want people to see your stuff, put it inside. I created walls for a reason."

Re:Shared items are not private

[sumdumass]

You do understand that telling one or two people something while it is "sharing" it with them, isn't the same thing as telling everyone that same thing right? And maybe the fact that so much of everything else is so public, that these few casually private pieces of life would mean more in this respect then an average joe not in the same position.

The problem isn't that it was shared, it was who it was shared with changed and that meant things that you wouldn't tell you boss made it to him directly from you without any notice or any way to prevent it.

Misleading article

[BlizzardandBlaze]

...No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out...

Not exactly. According to Google:

"You can hide items from any friend you don't want to see, and you can also opt out of sharing by removing all your shared items."

Re:I don't get it

[morgan_greywolf]

Okay. Let's say you're a pagan or a Wiccan or a Druid or something like that. Your fundamentalist Christian family, all of which have gmail accounts because you sent them invitations because you thought it was soo cool, has no idea of your alternative religious beliefs. You've subscribed to feeds from Witchvox.com and a number of similar sites.

What Google essentially did just 'outed' you to them.

Speaking as neopagan practitioner and priest (out of the closet), I can say that this situation would be not be unlikely at all.

This would have been disastrous for me.

[Satevis]

I'm relieved that I don't use Reader. If I did, I would probably have been sharing atheist and NSFW articles with my spouse and some close friends. I work in politics, and if that stuff had gotten out to other people on my contact lists, my career would have been over. I don't trust Google anymore.

A little more info

[pembo13]

First of all, I had no idea what Google reader is: which already makes it a low privacy risk to me. So I did a google for Google Reader, and found this page: http://www.google.com/reader/view/#directory-welcome-page. I'm not sure if the message on the side was always there, but it clearly states that it shares the data with "friends". "friends" being people on your google talk list.

I watched the video introduction about it, and it didn't seem to require personal data to use. Nor did the article summary say what the personal data that it was sharing is. So I'm going to guess it is sharing what ever it is that it is helping you get.

What this says to me is that people are still working with the assumption that things online apps hosted by third-parties help them to get it still private. I don't trust my ISP, farless Google. My lack of trust however, doesn't prevent me from consuming their useful services.

Yahoo??

[Locklin]

as things stand now I prefer having my email on yahoo/google than on a personal domain just for this reason.

So you don't mind Yahoo pasting spam into your outgoing emails? Those little ads at the bottom of your emails from Yahoo (and msn) users are rather annoying. It's one thing to pay for the service by viewing ads, but it's another to pay for it by spamming non-users.

The issue is a change in semantics

[ai2097]

As many readers have commented, this does not seem like such a big deal. Shared stuff being public? Who cares? Don't do it, ya morons! And so on.

I don't use GMail, or Google's reader. However, from TFA and the complaints, it appears as though there was a service where you could aggregate and re-publish feeds through a link that was not (automatically) published anywhere. Google changed the semantics of this, to mean that these "shared" feeds are now automatically available to everyone in your contact list. This (rightfully) has pissed off many existing users, who have invested their time into a system that they must now abandon, because most people have the concept of "mixed company." You don't talk about certain topics in certain groups -- you might be fine making dirty jokes around your regular friends, for example, but you behave yourself when you're at a professional lunch.

So, this is not a matter of not using it -- it's a matter of bait-and-switch. The rules got changed out from under the user's feet, and that leads to a feeling of betrayal in the case where embarrassing information gets leaked. Google gave the impression that you were just hanging out with your friends, and then let in your stuffy colleagues while you were in the middle of telling The Aristocrats Joke.

When even the original poster stops ReadingTFA

[nick_davison]

From the original poster:

No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. From the initial, very first comment in the thread they link to:

You can hide items from any friend you don't want to see, and you can also opt out of sharing by removing all your shared items. Sure, it's a pain: having to disable all of your shared items if you don't, you know, want to share. But it's not exactly "no way to opt-out" when the very first thing they do is tell you how to.

Now, had they been straight and called it for what it is, "You're auto opted in and the only way to opt out is a painful and destructive process that devalues other aspects." then that would be one thing. Blatantly misrepresenting to jump to the head of the wambulance queue - to the point where it's hard to believe it was anything other than deliberate - just devalues your point and loses you all credibility, even for your valid points.

Re:I don't get it

[X]

For this scenario to play out, you'd have to click on "share" an article from these feeds. Free advice: if you are worried about privacy, don't click on things that say "share". If you do, you might want to unclick them quickly.

Re:A big mistake at a critical moment

[Anxarcule]

That sure wasn't blatant advertising or anything.

headline should read...

[pavera]

Google Reader begins sharing public data in a new way.

These were not "private" feeds, they were publicly available URLs (although obfuscated).

I'm not necessarily siding with Google on this one. I do think they should have thought this change of functionality out a little more, but the fact remains this data was already public. Comparing it to the Beacon scandal is not accurate at all.

Mr. Hand was right

[mcmonkey]

You are all on dope.

You give Google your private data, while they keep it private.

Are the folks at Google like the magical elves that come out at night and fix shoes? No, Google is a business. The folks who own Google do it for the money. You give Google your private data, and they mine the stuff out of it. There's nothing private about it. Your private data, after you give it to Google, isn't private any more.

Sounds like fun for the whole family ;)

[Moraelin]

BTW, if you were a closet homo, would you want you mom and dad to see that you were sharing Gay Marriage articles with your lovers?

Heh. This sounds like it could be fun, actually, and I'm not even gay. I'm almost tempted to finally get a GMail account and start sharing some gay stuff just to see if mom will try to give me advice about _that_ too.

Hmm, actually, now I'm getting even better ideas. Do they have some feeds about, dunno, bestiality or such?