Google Talk… Do No Evil? I think Not!
I use iChat as my IM client of choice. It’s relatively low memory and has Jabber support which allows me to link up to Google Talk and Facebook Chat’s IM networks. Google and Facebook seem to now be the IM networks of choice, it’s great because I can see the real names which doesn’t requirement to associate an avatar or handle with a person. Both are open and available on a variety of different clients.
However this past week I have started to discover a certain evil in Google Talk. When I am logged into both Facebook and Google Talk in iChat I have found that Google tries to spam my Facebook friends at their chat.facebook.com email address to invite them to join Google Talk! This all is happening without my knowledge or authorization and there’s no history in my Gmail sent box to show that this is happening.
The only way I have discovered it is that Facebook has started to delay the messages and I have started to get bouncebacks in my Gmail box showing this activity. I have included a copy of one of the messages at the bottom of this post and have confirmed that this is in fact standard practice for Google Talk accounts connecting on Jabber from any other client.
For a company that preaches “Do No Evil” this certainly is a dastardly practice. I was sure to let Google know that I did not approve of this practice.
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
-71656XXXX@chat.facebook.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect. Learn more at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=7720
[chat.facebook.com (1): Connection timed out]
----- Original message -----
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.223.88.23 with SMTP id y23mr35610fal.95.1316438706079; Mon, 19
Sep 2011 06:25:06 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:25:05 -0700
Message-ID: <CAEdNxjnX7AhETr79gkV962bR99+ujwQiFCan2+f51sERFC_8SQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Matthew Briney wants to chat
From: Matthew Briney <XXXXXXX@gmail.com>
To: -716565037@chat.facebook.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Briney wants to stay in better touch using some of Google's coolest new
products.
If you already have Gmail or Google Talk, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/b-e26fef9d35-becb19f102-auvTWLifecV3mqGnAPxexPndIdA
You'll need to click this link to be able to chat with Matthew Briney.
To get Gmail - a free email account from Google with over 2,800 megabytes of
storage - and chat with Matthew Briney, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/a-e26fef9d35-becb19f102-auvTWLifecV3mqGnAPxexPndIdA
Gmail offers:
- Instant messaging right inside Gmail
- Powerful spam protection
- Built-in search for finding your messages and a helpful way of organizing
emails into "conversations"
- No pop-up ads or untargeted banners - just text ads and related information
that are relevant to the content of your messages
All this, and its yours for free. But wait, there's more! By opening a Gmail
account, you also get access to Google Talk, Google's instant messaging
service:
http://www.google.com/talk/
Google Talk offers:
- Web-based chat that you can use anywhere, without a download
- A contact list that's synchronized with your Gmail account
- Free, high quality PC-to-PC voice calls when you download the Google Talk
client
We're working hard to add new features and make improvements, so we might also
ask for your comments and suggestions periodically. We appreciate your help in
making our products even better!
Thanks,
The Google Team
To learn more about Gmail and Google Talk, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html
(If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into
the address bar of your browser).
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