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Changes to GMail. - Major Privacy Concerns
britishtrident - 12/1/14 at 01:38 PM

Google is introducing major changes to GMail that will by default cause major threats to to user privacy by unless users opt-out.

Link to story on BBC News
Gmail update fuels privacy fears http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25680010

matt_gsxr - 12/1/14 at 02:03 PM

The BBC story would have been more helpful if it explained how to avoid this "threat".


I have changed the "Who can email you via your Google+ profile?" to "no-one", but are there other changes that need making?


Thanks in advance,

Matt

MikeRJ - 12/1/14 at 02:13 PM

Google Opt Out settings

Just checked mine and couldn't see the Google+ option shown in that article though.

dhutch - 12/1/14 at 03:40 PM

Urrrm, does this not simply mean that your google+ contacts can send you a mail via gmail? That's not the same as 'randomers being able to email you without your contact information' in my book.


Daniel

britishtrident - 12/1/14 at 04:10 PM

quote:
Originally posted by dhutch
Urrrm, does this not simply mean that your google+ contacts can send you a mail via gmail? That's not the same as 'randomers being able to email you without your contact information' in my book.


Daniel


Much more than that for example if you email a seller to make a complaint then as far as I understand there is nothing to stop the seller contacting you by any method that is on your profile.

dhutch - 12/1/14 at 04:28 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Much more than that for example if you email a seller to make a complaint then as far as I understand there is nothing to stop the seller contacting you by any method that is on your profile.

Email a seller on what, ebay? Surely they get your email address, as they would now, and can email you either way round?


Daniel

scudderfish - 12/1/14 at 05:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Much more than that for example if you email a seller to make a complaint then as far as I understand there is nothing to stop the seller contacting you by any method that is on your profile.


If you email a seller then they have your email address in the email.

This new thing means that someone on G+ can send me a message which appears in GMail. I can black hole it and they can never do it again. I can ignore it and they can't send me any more messages. I can reply, at which point we both have each others email address and can communicate outside of G+ by whatever email client we wish. It is the exact opposite of FB which took away the ability to contact someone through email and all messaging must go through their servers.

The beauty of email is the interoperability of it. FB is trying to go back to the bad old days where Compuserve users could not send messages to AOL users who could not send messages to email users. Comms silos are bad.

ste - 13/1/14 at 01:51 AM

Far less worse than the phone book to be honest.