Librarian by Day » Google

5 Reasons Google+ Is A Privacy Accident (Disaster?) Waiting to Happen

Bobbi Newman — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:55:21 +0000

1. You think it has better privacy controls

This is number one, hands down, the biggest reason its a problem waiting to happen. The pure enthusiasm for a new product and your belief that you are “safer” will lead to you to share more believing that you have better control.

2. It’s still in Beta.

Beta means beta, which means there are bugs that haven’t been worked out. It also means that this isn’t the finished product, things could change.

3. The follow vs friend vs circle confusion.

Anyone can “follow” you by adding you to a circle even if you don’t reciprocate. This is weird hybrid of Twitter & Facebook. We already know people don’t understand complicated privacy settings.

Twitter: your account is either public or private and you know which one it is. Yes it’s possible on Twitter to repost a tweet from a private account.

Facebook: you must request a reciprocal agreement of friendship. If I deny that request you can’t follow me.The default settings for posts and status updates is “friends only”. So let’s say I intend to post my “party friends” but inadvertently post to all. Eek! Yep that’s bad, but it still only goes to the people I’ve allowed to be my friend. Let’s say even worse, I don’t notice that I’ve shared that post with all of my friends, its still not indexable by Google or other search engines. Facebook does make it easy to share (repost) photos and other links posted to the wall but not status updates.

Google+: there is no approval process so anyone can follow me without my approval, similar to a public Twitter account. But Google+ stresses the privacy aspect and many people are comparing it to Facebook, so people will use it like Facebook. Now let’s say I make an error there and while intending to post to my “party friends” only I accidentally post to the default setting which is “public” eek! Now the whole world can see it, and if I don’t notice and correct the issues it IS indexable by Google. Google+ allows people (repost) share your photos, your links and your status updates.

Plus anyone a post is shared with can share that post.

Remember that anyone a post is shared with can see all comments to that post, who else it’s shared with, and share the post with others.

3. Google isn’t up front about how they are using and storing your information.

I talked about this when I wrote Google’s Social Circle & Social Search May Not Violate Any Privacy Laws But It Gives Me The Creeps. Google states they were basing my Social Circle and Social Search on my Google Profile, except I didn’t have one and the instructions they gave to change settings & content did not work.

And I’m not the only with concerns about what Google says versus what Google does

“[Google] made fairly significant verbal assurances that they would improve their behavior but apparently that’s all they did,” Barton said. “They really didn’t change their business model and it appears to me Google had adopted a model of saying one thing in Washington and doing another in their business practices.”

4. Google+ For Mobile – which according to the site allows for:

Instant Upload for Android. Upload every video and picture to your own private album in the cloud. From there, just edit and share them with whoever you want.

Which is awesome until there is a glitch in the system and all of your photos go public for 15 minutes and everyone can see those phones you took for sexting with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/stranger-you-met-on-a-plane which were automatically uploaded thanks to Google+ for Mobile, but you didn’t bother to delete because A) You forgot it did that or B) they are private anyway.

5. You’re putting all of your eggs in one basket

There is a reason for that old saying about not putting all of your eggs in one basket. I don’t think Facebook is better or worse than Google, I don’t think they have better motives or privacy or are using my data in better ways. But I KNOW both Google and Facebook are using my data and for right now I think its best to put that data in as many separate baskets as possible.

Let me be clear I’m not saying Facebook or Twitter (or Friendfeed?) is better than Google+, I’m just saying Google+ isn’t better than any of them, especially for the Average Joe (which is probably not you if you’re reading this blog btw)

PS: Dear Google, I love you, please don’t take away my Gmail, or Google Reader, or Docs, or my Android phone. Love Bobbi

Read More:

Similar Posts:

Does the average Joe really need to know what a browser is?

Bobbi Newman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:52:24 +0000

Jessamyn West shared this yesterday

“A team from Google interviewed dozens of people in Times Square the other day, asking a simple question: What’s a browser? This was in an effort to understand and improve the customer experience of Google’s own browser, called Chrome.

Turns out that over 90% of the people interviewed could not describe what a Web browser is.”

Watch the video

I don’t think any of my non-techie family or friends could answer this question. I’m not sure I could adequately if a microphone was put in my face while I was out shoe shopping (its hard to swtich from thinking about a stacked heel to properly defining browser) My parents use Firefox because I told them to, I don’t think they have any idea why.

But does it matter? I know nothing about how my car works, I have no idea what’s actually involved in making it go, other than I turn a key, shift gears and apply the brake. Does the average Joe need to know what a browser is or just how to get online? I’m sure a car enthusiastic will tell you my Saturn is not so hot, but I don’t care it works for me, it gets me from Point A to Point B. Isn’t that how most people feel about their browser? Some of us are browser enthusiast, some of us aren’t. If the average Joe only wants to get from Point A to Point B why does he need to know what a browser is?

Similar Posts:

What do you think of Google Flu Trends?

Bobbi Newman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:31:18 +0000

I’ll admit it, I’m sucker for Google products – Reader, Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Chrome and I know on some level the dangers of that. I have lots of bookmarks in delicious about it. This morning while I was watching the news I heard mention of something new – Google Flu Trends. According the the site:

We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.

I’m not certain why this disturbs me, I think I want to know how Google knows where I am when I search. If I go into a computer in my library and do a Goolge search for Flu how do they know I’m in Jefferson City? How? I looked in the FAQ and How Does This Work section and don’t see it. I’m sure someone will leave a comment and let me know. But I’m not sure that will make my unease go away. Think of everything else they *could* track.

Similar Posts: