Today’s Lesson: Public Doesn’t Mean Private, Even at Google
Posted by Fred on December 26, 2007
Google recently combined some of the functionality of Google Talk and Google Reader, making it possible for items you’ve chosen to share via Reader to automatically show up on the feeds list of your friends who also use Reader. Here’s how Google describes it:
So, we’ve linked up Reader with Google Talk (also known as chat in Gmail) to make your shared items visible to your friends from Google Talk. Once you’ve logged into Reader and been notified of the change, these friends will be able to see your shared items in the Reader left-hand navigation area under “Friends’ shared items”. We’ve provided an option to clear your shared items in case you don’t want your friends to see what you’ve shared in the past. We’ve also added a Settings page so you can choose which friends you see and invite friends who aren’t yet sharing to try it out.
And here’s what it looks like (I don’t have a lot of Google-style “friends” because I tend to think social networking is kind of useless):
This feature really has people up in arms, with lots of loose comparisons to Facebook’s ill-fated beacon feature being thrown about. Reader users in the Google Group thread announcing the feature call it “the worst ‘feature’ [Google has]ever introduced” and “a major privacy problem.” Scoble says that Google screwed up and needs to introduce granular privacy controls as soon as possible. Mashable’s running a poll asking if the new feature violates privacy (although currently “not a privacy problem” is beating “hands off my data” fairly handily). TechCrunch says “there is a creepy surveillance aspect to this that might also turn some people off, or keep them from sharing anything at all.” Slashdot readers are doing what Slashdot readers do, and overreacting to everything.
I just can’t see what the issue is. A month ago, if you clicked the Share icon on one of your feed items, it got added to a page that anybody with a web browser could read, or anybody with an RSS reader could add as a feed. Now, if you click the Share icon, it gets added to a page that anybody with a web browser can read, creates a feed that anybody with an RSS reader can subscribe to, and adds a link to your shared items for the subset of people who (a) are your “friends” as Google Talk defines them and (b) also use Google Reader. Google certainly defines friend more broadly than I do - although Tyler is probably a good person and fun to have a beer with, I “know” him only because we exchanged a couple of e-mails a year ago. The people on my Google friends list who I actually care about don’t use Google Reader. But your shared items have always been public to the world.
The problem for Google seems to stem from two things. First, Google provided some modicum of privacy through obscurity by obfuscating the shared items URL - Scoble’s is http://www.google.com/reader/shared/14480565058256660224, which is hardly obvious. But privacy through obscurity is no more private than security through obscurity is secure, so the idea that shared items used to be private but now are not is kind of silly. Second, people are idiots. Google should know this, and should have baked in privacy controls that really didn’t do anything but made people feel better anyway. They already half did this - I can hide items shared by my friends but can’t hide my shared items from my friends.
Ultimately, however, people are still idiots. Don’t click a button labeled “Share” without expecting the item to be, well, shared. Don’t use a shared item feature as something it is not, such as a way to “back up” RSS feeds (all you’re doing is duplicating one bit of bits on a Google server as another bit of bits on a Google server). I love privacy as much as the next guy, but the idea that you ever had an expectation of privacy in the Google shared items feature is just silly. This isn’t at all like Beacon.
December 27, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Yet you have a blog that allows comments! So do you think social networking is useless or not?
December 27, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I think the people in an uproar have confused privacy with anonymity. Google never claimed privacy for “shared” items. These items were in fact public but anonymous. Now they are public and no longer anonymous.
anonymous
adj 1: having no known name or identity or known source; “anonymous
authors”; “anonymous donors”; “an anonymous gift”
[ant: onymous]
2: not known or lacking marked individuality; “brown anonymous
houses”; “anonymous bureaucrats in the Civil Service”
private
adj 1: confined to particular persons or groups or providing
privacy; “a private place”; “private discussions”;
“private lessons”; “a private club”; “a private
secretary”; “private property”; “the former President
is now a private citizen”; “public figures struggle to
maintain a private life” [ant: public]
2: concerning things deeply private and personal; “private
correspondence”; “private family matters”
3 not expressed; “secret (or private) thoughts” [syn: secret]
December 28, 2007 at 10:10 am
@Khurt:
Good points, but shared items weren’t really anonymous either. My shared items page (currently empty because I’ve never used the feature) is titled Fred’s Shared Items. Google defaults to whatever you have put in as your nickname in your Google profile. Most people have probably used a nickname that is in some way tied to their real life self. Granted, no one stumbling upon that page would know whether I was Fred Ochsenhirt or Fred Flintstone, so it’s probably semi-anonymous. people apparently assumed that because Google obfuscated what was always intended to be a public page, that they therefore had an expectation of privacy. I still don’t understand why you would have or want an expectation of privacy in a list of URLs that you have explicitly chosen to share.
Eventually, Google may Scobleize the feature and let you select people to exclude from the Reader function, but it’s still the ultimate opt-in: items are only shared if you explicitly share them. don’t want people to know you like blog posts about videogame-playing cats or naked people? Don’t share them. Want to share a post with your WoW buddy but not your boss? Send an email. There’s a handy Email link right next to the Share link.
December 28, 2007 at 10:12 am
Oh, and as to your other point - I realize it’s kind of inconsistent to like blogs with open comments and hate Facebook, but I never claimed to be consistent.
December 28, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[...] by publicly sharing the items you have elected to publicly share via Reader? As you know, I think the whole thing’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing (other than that many people are idiots). Google has suggested a workaround for those who want to [...]