Is Google+ Planning to Hand Out Users’ Personal Information?

“Don’t give out personal information online.  Give nobody in cyber space access to your phone number, location, age… or email address.”

This is drilled time after time into the minds of those learning to use the web.  It seems, after all, that with this information it’s much easier for hackers, predators, and identity thieves to take advantage of a web user.  Times are changing now, with many websites plainly displaying much of this information.  The prominence of social media is contributing to this- often times in a Twitter or Facebook bio, personal information such as hometown, age, birth date and full name is just a click away.

What’s the way to avoid this? Put your privacy settings on “high.”  Don’t make an account on these sites in the first place.  Make an anonymous account.  Be happy with a simple email account for the necessary cross-web communications.  This seems simple, right?  Unfortunately, it’s not so easy anymore. 

No longer is email, the sort of “horse and buggy” of web communications, going to be quite as private.  The ever-so reliable Google Corporation, holding the personal information of more than 18,915,810 people nationwide (it was 18,915,810 in 2012 according to a post on the Google+ website itself, http://tinyurl.com/kreaztm) , is now going to display it freely and without users’ permission. 

You know when you begin to type somebody’s email address into the “recipient” box, and if they’re already in your contacts list the address auto-fills or gives a list of full contact names and email addresses you can click on as a short cut? This is going to start happening even when someone’s contact is not already in your address book.  Any Google+ account username deemed a “connection” will be displayed when you begin typing the beginning series of characters. 

There is no end to the repercussions of this.  Issues involving stalkers is mentioned in the CNN’s article (click the following link to view article http://preview.tinyurl.com/kpbt36m ).

The intent of this feature is to allow a user to reconnect with people they may have known but had lost or never remembered to write down their email address.  This is a nice sentiment although not what users have been asking for.

What is the response going to be when a few teenage kids decide to send out prank emails to random addresses?  When clicking on an auto-filled name, the kids know that they’re sending it to a valid account.  One “innocent prank” consisting of a nasty email threatening or bullying somebody could (in an extreme case) drive somebody over the edge, to commit suicide or violence.  One unsolicited message could essentially end a person’s life.  This is a drastic example, but powerful nonetheless.  When concerns of privacy are involved, corporations should always air on the side of withholding.