Gmail Bug Sends Thousands of Emails To One Man
An anonymous reader writes "TechCrunch is reporting on an interesting Gmail bug. Apparently, if you run a Google search for Gmail while logged in and click one of the top (and correct) results, it brings up a Compose window with an email address already filled in: the Hotmail account of a Fresno, CA man. He says he's been receiving hundreds every hour, most of which are blank, since yesterday. The article says the bug is related to the Gmail outage from earlier this afternoon."
This is hardly a "Gmail bug", but rather Google indexing a direct link to Gmail with the To: field filled out with some random email address. The linkbait-y title of this post made me think that some of my private emails were getting sent to the wrong person.
What, he doesn't already receive thousands of emails everyday that is not for him? Lucky man.
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
Now we're seeing the company both have many more screwups, and be more manipulative, basically by trying to force us all to use GoogleBook (or G+ as they call it).
I don't think they're bad people. I think human organizations, when they get too large, become unstable because shared vision is lost and people start treating it as "just a job."
Obviously, no amount of free soft drinks and stock options can remedy that.
I don't think they've lost their shared vision, they seem pretty focused on getting as many people to use Google+ as possible. It seems most like now what they see in their vision is monetizing their users.
Big is just what is needed to topple the corrupt telecommunications oligopoly. If Google can get 1 gb/s fiber here and there and spread it, we're either gonna get 1 gb/s fiber eventually, or the telecommunications oligopolies will be forced to compete and stop deliberately keeping us in the dark ages.
God spoke to me
When you are being DDoSed by motherfucking Google .
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Nice try. His email address is noreply@gmail.com. What did he expect?
I think its less 'not doing evil' as much as its 'not staying competent'.
But sloppiness kills..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
Now we're seeing the company both have many more screwups, and be more manipulative, basically by trying to force us all to use GoogleBook (or G+ as they call it).
I don't think they're bad people. I think human organizations, when they get too large, become unstable because shared vision is lost and people start treating it as "just a job."
Obviously, no amount of free soft drinks and stock options can remedy that.
I don't think they've lost their shared vision, they seem pretty focused on getting as many people to use Google+ as possible. It seems most like now what they see in their vision is monetizing their users.
This. At the expense of quality. Somewhere in the definition of doing no evil there must be some clause related to actually testing your junk before releasing updates or not putting in annoying little stupid bits (like the fade on drop-down lists.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, I think we've located the source of the problem
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
...
They still have a shared vision.
Monetize your privacy.
You're not their customer - you're their PRODUCT.
actually testing your junk before releasing updates
Everything Google puts out is "beta." Forever. They used to actually label it as such; this isn't the case anymore but I'm not sure that Google has ever released a product that they considered production-ready.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
So stop using gmail. When it was new it was special - clean simple webmail. Those days are long past. Outlook.com doesn't suck. Some people like Yahoo mail. Neither company does the ubiquitous tracking and analysis that Google does.
Why do you think that if I don't use Gmail that Google can't track my searches?
Neither company *admits* they do the ubiquitous tracking and analysis that Google does, but I've seen nothing in the Terms of Use and Privacy Policies for either vendor that precludes them from doing so, and both have popular ad networks (well, it looks like Yahoo is using Bing for search and ads), so it seems highly unlikely that they'd cede a competitive advantage to Google by not using customer data to their advantage.
Well, that'll stop once it's out of beta ...
Bark less. Wag more.
Big is just what is needed to topple the corrupt telecommunications oligopoly. If Google can get 1 gb/s fiber here and there and spread it, we're either gonna get 1 gb/s fiber eventually, or the telecommunications oligopolies will be forced to compete and stop deliberately keeping us in the dark ages.
At least, until Google owns enough of the infrastructure to join the 'big boys' in their little club. Then it'll just be more of the same, but with 1 extra player.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
How many of you read the summary and developed a sudden desire to bombard this poor soul's inbox by trying it for yourselves? Be honest.
I'll start things off by admitting to it myself.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Why exactly do you need to use google search to look for gmail when you're already logged in? Hundreds of people are doing that per hour, wtf? Hello? Address bar?
Has he been contacted by the entire population of Nigeria about a couple of pallets of exotic goods all gummed up in customs, and could he help liberate said goods for a tidy profit?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Yeah, I ran into that eariler this week. The only thing that solved it was to delete all of my cache and cookies. Hasn't happened again.
Clear the browser's cache and cookies. It's the web 2.0 version of "Have you tried rebooting it?". If you haven't tried it yet, don't even call me.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
It's the Google culture. Creating new stuff is cool, and what all the kiddies at Google love to do. But since they lack adults (at least at the management level) there's no interest in finishing up or maintaining the old projects.