Google has been blamed for outing a transgender woman in The Guardian’s tech news section, and the story was picked up by the Inquirer and others — but the truth is the woman accidentally outed herself.
The woman was still a man at work, but when she filled out her Google+ public profile (note the word “public”) she used her new female name and gender. The big accidental reveal happened when she sent a text message at work using her Android with the Google Hangouts app installed. The message was sent as a Google message instead of as a straight-up SMS text message. As an SMS it would have just shown the text coming from her phone number, but instead, her work colleague received the information with her Google+ profile, which shows “he” is a “she.”
The Guardian states: “But the behavior of the app is confusing even to seasoned Android users, and can result in personal information being inadvertently shared.” This statement annoys me because it wasn’t personal information that was shared — it was public information on a public profile. If you don’t want something to be public, then don’t post it. Having said that, it annoys me equally that Google+ requires you to fill in a gender when creating your profile. You have the choice between male, female, and other — whatever the hell “other” is. I’d prefer a none-of-your-business option there.
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Sure, I can feel the pain over making a mistake such as hitting the wrong button. I’ve hit “reply all” in a large CCed email when I should have just hit “reply.” But I didn’t blame Microsoft for that.
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How confusing is Google’s app? I surveyed my friends to see if any had had disastrous or positive experiences. None of my friends reported back with disasters. The first user response was from David Barber, the Education IT Manager at AETN, who said, “It’s actually one of the best things Google has done — a number of podcasts I listen to are just a recorded Hangout.” Though, he admitted there is a learning curve. Regarding the product specifically he said, “Video chat is not a new idea, but I think Hangouts do it very well. The fact that it’s integrated into the Android OS means that it works better on your phone than some previous iterations have done. The hardware ‘last mile’ has been difficult for app makers who didn’t have OS-level access to the phone. Since Google makes the OS and the app, they obviously don’t have that problem.”
When it comes down to actually physically using it, Barber said, “I happen to have one of the handsets that will run Android 4.4, but I hadn’t noticed they had merged Hangouts and SMS until you mentioned it. I was prompted on my phone whether or not I wanted to allow that to happen. I can’t say if this other person had opted in or not, but on mine there was a choice.”
While Facebook messaging with Barber, I asked my friend Mike Sullivan (alltec.com), who has a new Android, to read the Guardian article, download the Google app and send me a text message.
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Meanwhile, Barber also pointed out, “I understand the concern people would have in having their public profile tied to a simple message, but on the other hand, there are several apps that will do this anyway on Android. If her phone number was on her profile, or her email address was connected to her phone number on the other person’s phone, it would have been not unlikely that they would have been directed to her profile anyway. Google has been very aggressive in integrating all of their products, and many people install apps that tie all of their contacts and social networks together — some even integrate other public databases as well. So it’s very much an old story of ‘don’t publish anything you don’t want the world to know’.”
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The text message from my friend Mike’s cell number arrived. “Google did not take over.” Mike had no difficulties or confusion and didn’t accidentally send me anything juicy either.
The transgender woman said she’s lucky she works in a state where she can’t be fired. But many people have been fired for posting updates on the Internet about themselves. You can’t blame Facebook if you told your boss that you’re home sick and then that same day upload date-stamped photos of yourself water-skiing while wearing a “my boss sucks the big one” t-shirt and get canned for it.
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Since the article came out blaming Google, The Guardian has made a note below its story to say it has been amended “to clarify” that there was “user error.” But the story had already been shared online and snatched up by bloggers and other publications that have not amended their stories, and that also sucks the big one.
