Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

On the heels of Robert Scoble calling out Facebook for an alleged “erasure,” Danah Boyd shares the sad tale of a “Google horror story,” claiming a third party “disappearance.”

While both Scoble and Boyd do a fine job of tugging at the Web’s heart strings, both cases cloud data security issues in the cloud. Here at Insider Chatter, I have advised of the unavoidable user privacy and data security risks inherent in the use of both Facebook and Google services, and warn non-tech savvy users about using the dangerous services.

In both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, however, both Facebook and Google have appeared to act in the privacy and security interests of their large numbers of non-paying “customers,” attempting to neutralize potentially nefarious affects of dangerous acts (intentional or otherwise) emmanating from the accounts of individual, tech savvy users.

What’s more, in both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, both Facebook and Google restored the free accounts, intact, in a timely manner. Contrary to the sensationalist headlines, Scoble was not “erased” by Facebook and Bob was not “disappeared” by Google.

“Bob” corrects the Boyd story in comments to the post: “I’m the Bob in question. To be fair to Google, it’s unclear if the connections were the reason my account was restored (within 3 days). I filled out the “account hijacked” form several times (advice on the discussion group was to do it every day). And the support email did not come from an individual at Google, but the “team.” So either it was at the guiding hand of one of my friends’ connections and they aren’t taking credit, or I had a really good experience with the standard customer service.”

“Bob” also laments that he ought to have known better, given his technology expertise:

I’m a very experienced internet user, which is part of why I’ve asked not use my name. I’m the -last- person that should be a phishing victim, yet it happened to me. Since it happens to internet professionals far less than, say, the clueless relatives of internet professionals, of course we blame it on the user.

The very expertise of “Bob” and Robert, though, begs the question as to why they are even entrusting free Facebook and Google consumer services with anything!

“Mike” undersocres in the comments: “IMO you should never let a third party (especially electronically) maintain any personal information or data which you wouldn’t want disclosed.”

YES, and one should also not willingly provide such data to such a third party which maintains it in perpetuity with no abillity to correct, modify and or permanently delete the data from all of the third party’s systems, as both the Facebook and Google Privacy Policies and Terms Of Use suggest.

An eternal data trap is the REAL Google and Facebook nightmare and there is only one sure way to avoid it: Don’t use such free, consumer services which do not offer adequate privacy policies and terms of use.

Legislation is not necessary to “protect” users from willy nilly willingly handing over their own personal, proprietary information and data to the greedy “free” servers of for (big) profit corporations, common sense is.

Facebook is NOT a public service, nor is it a necessary one: It can very well be a dangerous service, though. Scoble and “Bob” lessons learned ought to be to STOP using Facebook and Google free login services, not to demand government “protection” from them.

Concerned about Gmail? Get your own domain email account. Concerned about data backup? Use for-fee, professional third party services that guarantee it, in writing. Concerned about not being able to permanently delete data from third party, “free” non-professional servers? Don’t put your information in such places.

Facebook and Google login services are not constitutional rights, they are optional, free, opt-in, corporate services, which adult users of the Internet are free to use, at their own risk.

ALSO: LinkedIn Preps Spy Network: Is YOUR Company Safe?

MORE: Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk and
2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and
MySpace to Facebook: Where is Your ‘Reach, Relevancy, Results’? OMMA Report and
Facebook is ‘Sorry’? Savvy Users Will Forget, NOT Forgive, Mark Zuckerberg and
Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and
Dear Facebook, Beacon Tracking STILL Evil: Will Zuckerberg Partners Repent? and
Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push and
Mark Zuckerberg: Use Facebook at Your Own Risk! and
With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies? and
Startups: Why Facebook Platform is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 

Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers and
Google Privacy Trap: Consumers Beware and
Google is WRONG On Consumer Privacy and
Google is NOT Your Friend 

PLUS: How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and Yahoos Rally: Beware Sticky Peanut Butter Tales

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Will the enterprise IT world arrive today on the job bracing for an employee revolution, facing inexorable worker demands for corporate happiness via Google Apps Team Edition?

So goes the Google Enterprise spiel, obligingly presented by pre-briefed media, both old and new:

Ben Worthen, The Wall Street Journal, wears his NOT-SO hard news objectivity on his headline sleeve: “Google marginalizes tech departments even more” How can the WSJ be so sure? Google PR told Worthen so:

Google is bottoms up, appealing directly to individuals, encouraging them to bring the tools they use in their personal lives into the workplace. To that end, Google built a feature into Team Edition that lets IT departments upgrade to the full corporate version of Google Apps if it realizes that a large number of its workers are using it.

Elinor Mills, CNET, leads with the Google PR talking point: ”Just like rogue employees in the 1990s forced instant messaging into corporations, the new Google Apps Team Edition being launched on Thursday offers a way for workers to slip a hosted apps service into the enterprise,” reinforcing the Google Enterprise marketing pitch: 

“People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago,” said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. “We’re trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness.”

BUT, who is really forcing what where? Google may have dreams of a Les Miserables like “bottoms-up” employee cry of “We want our Google Apps,” but the enterprise IT world is having the last laugh, at Google Enterprise’s ongoing expense.

READ ALL ABOUT HOW There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise:

Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat

PLUS: LinkedIn To Mine User Data For Corporate Espionage and Poynt IM Local Search: Will Yellow Pages on BlackBerry Crack the Code? and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too and Cuill? Google Vet Startups Pose NO Threat: FriendFeed, Howcast, Zillow

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

“Become a knowledge management ninja with Google Reader”? 

If 2007 was the year of Facebook’s “social graph,” Google hopes 2008 will be the year of Google Social. From Open Social, to Google “shared stuff,” to Google Reader “sharing,” Google hopes it can simply “share” its Googley way to Facebook extinction.

I have often underscored, however, that sharing Web 2.0 social media style is NOT really caring.

SEE: NewsFriends? Facebook Anti Social Utility: Real Friends DON’T Share and  YAY? Weblo Cheapens Facebook ‘Friendship,’ Whales Rejoice! and Twitter and Facebook: The BIG Illusions of Friendship and Influence

After all, Old Chinese proverb says: “You can hardly make a friend in a year, but you can easily offend one in an hour,” i.e. Facebook Beacon and Google Reader “sharing.”

Nevertheless, Steve Micro Persuasion Rubel wants more sharing in 2008, especially the Google kind:

Be a ninja in 08. Go forward and good luck.  have been using various RSS readers for nearly five years now - I’ve tried them all. However, none matches the power of Google Reader. I have found that if you tap into all of its features, it’s the Holy Grail of Personal Knowledge Management.

Rubel’s buzzwords dazzle, but where is the real knowledge that he claims to be managing?

I encourage you to throw as many feeds as you can at the Google Reader just so you can capture and mine it. This should include relevant feeds that you never have any intention of reading or even scanning.

Sound familiar? Facebook whales “throw” up to 5000 “friends” around, with never any intention of ever being their friends.

Rubel nevertheless believes his own custom searchable database makes him a knowledge “ninja”:

With the recent addition of search, the Google Reader becomes much more. Like Gmail, Reader should be viewed as a database that you can build from scratch and continually hone.

The end game? Rubel can do his own search for all mentions of employer Edelman’s client Microsoft’s Xbox in Techmeme!

YAY? For Google! Google is the one becoming the knowledge ninja, all knowledgeable of Steve Rubel’s every personal and professional interest and need.

The end of the year privacy brouhahas over Google Reader “sharing” and Facebook Beacon were but charades, feel-good “outrage” with no meaningful privacy effect.

What privacy transgressions were Facebook and Google accused of? The enabling of “sharing” of users’ information with users’ own social graph. The real privacy danger of Google and Facebook continues to be ignored by users, however, as I often underscore here at Insider Chatter.

SEE: Google Reader: Naughty or Nice? Santa Safe! and
YES! Facebook IS Scarier Than Google! and
Facebook is ‘Sorry’? Savvy Users Will Forget, NOT Forgive, Mark Zuckerberg and
Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and
Dear Facebook, Beacon Tracking STILL Evil: Will Zuckerberg Partners Repent?

Why have I deemed facebook to be scarier than Google? Each Facebook user knowingly and willingly provides an interested corporation with the intimate details of their daily personal and professional lives to enable persistent data records for the unique data mining profit advantage of the corporation. Because Facebook as “Big Brother” is consensual, there is no redress.

Google has now tied Facebook for scary honors, however, due to how it profits from users’ personal genetic materials obtained by Google under false pretenses via GOOG 411. SEE: Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers

Bottom 2008 line? Use Google and Facebook accounts at your own risk.

ALSO: Why Google Worship is a BAD Call in 2008 and How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Poor Santa? Leave it to Slashdot to drag him through the snow in search of a link-worthy headline: “Google Reader shares private data, ruins Christmas.”

REALLY? Felipe Hoffa’s accusation is off the mark, way off.

In the “Sharing With Friends” feature, Google Reader is NOT deviously “sharing” any private data, as Hoffa melodramatically asserts:

As each day Google hoards more of your data there is an implicit deal that makes this possible: You give Google your private data, while they keep it private. That deal would fail miserably is someday Google decided unilaterally to share your data with more people. For example, with all your Gmail contacts. Many people fear that this might happen someday, but they don’t need to wait anymore as it has already happened.

Contrary to Hoffa’s beliefs, there is no privacy “deal” implicit in ANY of Google services which require login. Google’s privacy policies make that abundantly clear: Google is free to do whatever it likes, for as long as it likes, with any user data that is forked over to its servers by anyone. Gmail, for example:

Google maintains and processes your Gmail account and its contents to provide the Gmail service to you… and other purposes relating to offering you Gmail.

The “other purposes” Google disclaimer gives Google the explicit right to do virtually anything it wants with the data of others willingly handed to it for perpetual “hoarding.”

Google Reader’s privacy policy:

We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and services.

What does such an open ended Google disclaimer allow Google to do with all user data obtained via Google Reader? Undoubtedly anything it wants to do, as GOOG 411 proves. SEE: Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers.

Despite that all Google Reader users agree to Google’s Terms Of Service, Hoffa is ”appalled” that Google has not “apologized” for its latest Google Reader sharing “enhancement” and has not offered a “quick fix” to the (not so) legions of Google Reader users that are not quite sure what to make of the new and improved Google Reader.

For Google, the Reader case is nevertheless clear:

The “share” feature was always intended to imply some amount of publicity. That’s why we used the term “share” and had shared items marked as public by default on the Settings > Tags page.

There’s a “clear your shared items” link on the Settings > Friends page if you urgently need to remove the items you’ve shared in the past.

It is still possible (as before) to share specific tags, or your starred items, independently of your shared items feed. This is a good alternative for people who have more specific uses for this feature than the general concept of “sharing.”

Hoffa’s Christmas plea is that Google Reader users are revolting en masse. But, it is a tried and true blog tactic to use Google Group or blog comment thread remarks as a proxy for average user reaction and thereby spin exagerated tales.

Commenters are nevertheless always but a minority of users, regardless of the company involved. What’s more, while many of the Google Reader Group commenters are indeed negative, many are also simply bewildered by the new feature and some are even down right happy with it!

The new Google Reader sharing actually gets a big thumbs up from many Group posters:

very cool, awesome, great idea, thanks Google, I absolutely love you…

WOW! Those Google Reader users certainly are enjoying their Christmas, thanks to Google!

Google Maps users, on the other hand, are NOT faring as well. SEE: Lost On Google Maps! What Merry Christmas?

ALSO: Will Twitter Meet Digg’s Fate? and Browser Flack: Will Google Ever Escape Microsoft Rule? and 2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and Why Google Worship is a BAD Call in 2008 and How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

If only the gOS powered Everex Green gPC TC2502 was smaller, weighed less, was bundled with a monitor and boasted an always-on dialtone: WHO NEEDS GPHONE, then!

The impending Google Phone will undoubtedly be pricier than the Wal-Mart friendly $195 starter Linux PC: 1.5-gigahertz Via processor, 512 megabytes of memory, 80-gigabyte hard drive, DVD-ROM / CD-RW drive…PLUS direct connections to Googley “software” favorites such as gMail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Blogger.

BUT, NO Google Apps! (Google Applications, YES; The Microsoft killing Google Apps itself, NO)

Why OpenOffice.org 2.2, and NO Google Apps? HEY, who says Google hasn’t learned a Microsoft thing or two about making money off the desktop!

PLUS:  Microsoft Vista: Are 88 million Computers Really Doomed? and Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer

ALSO: Google’s Facebook KILLER Strategy, Microsoft Too and Facebook on the Defensive: Friendster Fate Looms?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

In the Google vs. Microsoft war, the key question is NOT “Is Google causing Microsoft to drop its prices.”

The real (not so) head scratcher is WHY doesn’t Google have ANY pricing power itself??? 

When Google turned on the Apps Premier for fee spigot June 1, I mused “so, will Google be busy ringing up $50 credit card charges for the hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions? of prior “free-trial” users of its would be Microsoft Office killer?”

Five months later, the Google Apps for Enterprise “limited time,” “30 day free-trial” offer is going strong, and all Google indications indicate that even at the rock-bottom, Microsoft Office “killing” price of $50 per user, per year, Google software is a tough sell.

I had a first row Javits seat for the Google Enterprise Interop keynote yesterday in New York City in the morning and watched the Google Analyst Day presentations live via video from Mountain View in the afternoon.

Bottom Google Enterprise line? Despite CEO Eric Schmidt’s Wall Street hype of “Search, Ads and Apps,” GOOG is now, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, 99% AdWords pure.

In Interop: Citrix XenSource Flys as Google Crashes yesterday, I reported how Google exec Matthew Glotzbach touted everything Apple in his Google Enterprise keynote before the east coast IT community, much to the chagrin of Interop GM Lenny Heymann. Glotzbach offered not a Google Enterprise word on Postini, the supposed Google $625 million ticket to enterprise credibility, and had no inspiring enterprise case study of how Google Apps premier is enabling the touted Googley “consumerization of the enterprise.”

The Interop Google Enterprise show was a hodgepodge of generic Internet growth stats and trite “innovation” cliches, hailing Steve Jobs and Starbucks, but NOT Google! All Glotzbach could muster for the Google Enterprise case was an end of speech brief mention of an initial ”adopter” of Apps, the non-paying education version that is.

While Google CEO Eric Schmidt rose to his “Executive Panel” occasion by making a heartfelt case for a worldwide movement to embrace the new, much ballyhooed, cloud computing paradigm, such a transition will be a very longtime coming and will likely continue to be a free-to-the-user one, for Google.

Schmidt declined to respond to very speciifc questions regarding the actual take-up of the Google Apps Premiere product versus the no-fee verison, indicating Google ”doesn’t break it out that way.”

Google may not publicy release “sales” figures for Google Apps, but the public “testimonial” accolades it touts for Apps tend to be the same non-paying “customers” over and over, comprising university and small corporate trial installations. Addtionally, Google has long readilly acknowledged that Apps is more attractive for SMBs, rather than the enterprise.

I previewed Google at the Office 2.0 conference last month by analyzing Mountain View’s “Switch to Google Apps” campaign. SEE:  Office 2.0 Enterprise Showdown: Zoho vs. Google Apps vs. Microsoft.

Why not switch to Google Apps, indeed? Schmidt let us in on Google Apps Premiere’s not so dirty little secrets yesterday. Impediments to enterprise adoption of Google Apps:

1) Prospective customers must first learn about the Google SaaS offering and then, 2) Companies must agree to convert operations over to Google Apps.

Schmidt indicated that while it is “easy for brand new entities to embrace Google Apps,” it is much harder for existing entities to make the “switch.” What office productivity application is Google NOT getting businesses to “switch” from? Market leader Microsoft Office.

Google nevertheless seems resigned to not be “killing” Microsoft.

Schmidt believes we are on the cusp of a Web-based computing revolution, which is happening gradually, much as mainstream PC adoption was a slow but steady progression.

What is Google pinning its Apps hopes on then? Building towards a future Googley SaaS cause. After all, the hundreds of thousands of non-paying, but purportedly happy, student users of Apps will soon be making enterprise IT decisions; In favor of Google, Schmidt hopes.

MORE:  IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat and Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway 

PLUS: Google NOT Hot For SILICON ALLEY Technology! and Microsoft Vista: Are 88 million Computers Really Doomed?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN