Valleywag
In an effort to rival Facebook, Google has decided to label anyone users chat with in Gmail a "friend." One privilege friends get is they can tell which stories you're sharing with other users in Google Reader. But instead of building a better social network, Google might just be a better Grinch. "This little feature," one woman writes in Google Groups "has actually RUINED CHRISTMAS for my family!" Here's her not so Merry little Christmas tale in 100 words.
This new feature RUINED CHRISTMAS for my family! I sent a share that I thought would go to a few politically-like-minded friends. Didn't realize that because I chatted with him in GChat, it would also go to my brother of a different political persuasion. He sent a email about it to our family. I sent him an email asking him not to talk behind my back. He called me a name.Told me we shouldn't talk at Christmas Eve dinner. My family has taken sides over this. Several of them are not speaking. Google set up whatever features you want but give us fair warning.
Comments
Google Reader's Shared Items are clearly marked as having a public RSS feed. I don't know what about the hub-bub is about.
Google is supposed to protect you against your own control freak asshole brother? Wow, I didn't hear about that new feature!
@MikeReynolds: the vast majority of people on the internet believe in security through obscurity. Noone would have found your public rss feed unless you gave it to them. A lot of "techie" people say it's stupid to rely on this, but lots of sites protect private information through obscurity. The most prevalent example is Facebook, where you can type in urls and get pictures where the photo is private.
To most users of Google Reader, your definition of "public" differs from their definition.
@raincoaster5: Clearly, failing to protect users' from their ignorance equates to doing evil. Duh.
Obviously, this feature is not "clearly" marked, if a significant number of users have been startled by the fact that their shared items are being broadcast to the world. In the words of Google itself, "don't blame the user!"
The bottom line is that it is the designer's job to make a product and its "features" transparent. I don't understand why after all the negative publicity surrounding this and similar issues, companies find it so hard to adopt an "opt-in" policy as opposed to a sly "opt-out" one... it seems to me like a misguided effort to force feature adoption.
i have a couple feeds in my google reader. i checked yesterday when I heard about this and found that it prompted me to "share" them.
i think they fixed something yesterday.
[googlereader.blogspot.com]
@TooManyEggs: the users understood how it worked. Google changed how it worked, which pissed off users.
Before the change, your Google reader broadcasted to the world what your shared items were if someone could guess your 21 digit (and cared to try to do so). After the change, your shared items were actively delivered and labeled with your name to everyone you had ever communicated with using gmail or gchat.
This isn't a matter of user ignorance, it is a matter of lazy implementation.
I love how everything is "ruining" Christmas lately. First Facebook, now Google. Since Christmas has passed, what will be ruined by the internets now? I hope Yahoo doesn't ruin my Martin Luther King Day. They probably will though.
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