Gmail Bug Sends Thousands of Emails To One Man 113
An anonymous reader writes "TechCrunch is reporting on an interesting Gmail bug. Apparently, if you run a Google search for Gmail while logged in and click one of the top (and correct) results, it brings up a Compose window with an email address already filled in: the Hotmail account of a Fresno, CA man. He says he's been receiving hundreds every hour, most of which are blank, since yesterday. The article says the bug is related to the Gmail outage from earlier this afternoon."
Only today? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bigness destroys companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
Now we're seeing the company both have many more screwups, and be more manipulative, basically by trying to force us all to use GoogleBook (or G+ as they call it).
I don't think they're bad people. I think human organizations, when they get too large, become unstable because shared vision is lost and people start treating it as "just a job."
Obviously, no amount of free soft drinks and stock options can remedy that.
I don't think they've lost their shared vision, they seem pretty focused on getting as many people to use Google+ as possible. It seems most like now what they see in their vision is monetizing their users.
Re:How do you know you're having a shitty day? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bigness destroys companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
Now we're seeing the company both have many more screwups, and be more manipulative, basically by trying to force us all to use GoogleBook (or G+ as they call it).
I don't think they're bad people. I think human organizations, when they get too large, become unstable because shared vision is lost and people start treating it as "just a job."
Obviously, no amount of free soft drinks and stock options can remedy that.
I don't think they've lost their shared vision, they seem pretty focused on getting as many people to use Google+ as possible. It seems most like now what they see in their vision is monetizing their users.
This. At the expense of quality. Somewhere in the definition of doing no evil there must be some clause related to actually testing your junk before releasing updates or not putting in annoying little stupid bits (like the fade on drop-down lists.)
Re:Bigness destroys companies (Score:2, Insightful)
Google was great when it was small and had shared vision.
...
They still have a shared vision.
Monetize your privacy.
You're not their customer - you're their PRODUCT.
Re:Google searches while logged in to Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
So stop using gmail. When it was new it was special - clean simple webmail. Those days are long past. Outlook.com doesn't suck. Some people like Yahoo mail. Neither company does the ubiquitous tracking and analysis that Google does.
Why do you think that if I don't use Gmail that Google can't track my searches?
Neither company *admits* they do the ubiquitous tracking and analysis that Google does, but I've seen nothing in the Terms of Use and Privacy Policies for either vendor that precludes them from doing so, and both have popular ad networks (well, it looks like Yahoo is using Bing for search and ads), so it seems highly unlikely that they'd cede a competitive advantage to Google by not using customer data to their advantage.
Re:Bigness destroys companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Big is just what is needed to topple the corrupt telecommunications oligopoly. If Google can get 1 gb/s fiber here and there and spread it, we're either gonna get 1 gb/s fiber eventually, or the telecommunications oligopolies will be forced to compete and stop deliberately keeping us in the dark ages.
At least, until Google owns enough of the infrastructure to join the 'big boys' in their little club. Then it'll just be more of the same, but with 1 extra player.
Show of Hands (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of you read the summary and developed a sudden desire to bombard this poor soul's inbox by trying it for yourselves? Be honest.
I'll start things off by admitting to it myself.
Hundreds of people per hour do WHAT? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why exactly do you need to use google search to look for gmail when you're already logged in? Hundreds of people are doing that per hour, wtf? Hello? Address bar?