The new "social" web is really creepy. Browsing in an incognito browser and logged into nothing has sortof become my default.
I don't want google chrome saving my search history, or to accidentally read an article on some news website that then broadcasts that fact to all of my facebook friends.
I'm still confused how that gets by Google. The full text shows up in search results, but is blurred by CSS for humans. Isn't that not allowed? Even experts-exchange includes the readable plaintext answers way at the bottom if you scroll down, for that reason.
edit: removed discussion of googleoff/googleon directives in the HTML source. Seemed suspicious, but apparently it's something to do with Google Search Appliance.
Yeah Google better kick them to the curb on this one. Man, for all the quibbling over Google latest activity being evil or not, they still do a much better job with basic ethics than Facebook and their ilk. The non-stop attempt to actively change privacy norms by constantly defaulting existing users into more and more revealing new preferences is starting to get really irritating. Facebook I sort of have to put up with because of friends and family, but Quora I'm done with until they reverse this braindead decision. Seriously I don't know who they think they are.
They don't think they are anybody special. What they think is that it is acceptable, normal behavior. This is not even irrational, considering the precedent set by Facebook - not only doing the same kind of awful stuff over and over again, but actually maintaining that nobody should have privacy. And Facebook has thousands of full-time defenders.
Apparently you (like a lot of savvy people otherwise concerned with privacy) will tolerate it from Facebook but not from Quora. So I guess what Quora should do is just get bought by Facebook; then you will not (be able to?) complain about their sketchy behavior.
(If anybody has a counterexample I'd be interested to see it, but try to make sure it's not just an old result that hasn't been re-indexed since the change.)
Google allows this if you show the first page's content for visitors that came from Google. If Quora does this, it's fine - it's Google's concession to old-world media.
Just get rid of the css style for .blurred_answer_wrapper span.blurred_answer and add display: none to .blurred_answer_wrapper .signup_cta_on_answer. Not that I've had more than one Quora result pop up since that began, but css is easy ;-)
I think actions like this give everyone a bad name. I'm not sure if it's the "social web" being creepy - it's Quora being really creepy, and destroying their own goodwill.
I think this is a very bad move from Quora. My guess is that they have goals on user growth and had to resort to this tactics in order to achieve that.
If you want to grow your user base, provide more value to registered users. Here are a couple of bullet points you can start with:
1. Grow the community with real content. Do that by first focusing on a specific domain/topic that has a natural draw of users. Stack Exchange draws the programmers crowd and nailed that community. Once you got to a critical mass, other communities will follow. E.g., when you have enough programmers in the same place, some of them will share some common interests like photographs, salsa dancing, etc ... Looks like Quora's base supporters are Bay Area's start up community. This is probably too small a support base for sustainable growth. Either Quora needs to expand this support base quickly or it's the END ...
2. Better relevance/recommendations. I am reasonably active on Quora. I follow 82 topics and got 8 answers. However I don't see any good question in the main page even though I scrolled at 10 page lengths.
Unfortunately with supercookies, IP address-based identification (maybe even machine signature based id-ing?) and such, I think incognito mode is practically a placebo.
I'm aware of that link and here's my result in Chrome on Incognito.
Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 1,172,808 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.
Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 20.16 bits of identifying information.
Then you'd be a British IP with a US user agent, which is probably a ton of bits. I just used User Agent Switcher & changed it to firefox 5.0 under XP.
You may be unique, but within a very small pool. For example, my current user agent string alone narrows me down to within one in ~2-3 million users/browsers. When taken with the intersection of all those other bits, it's very easy to get an incredibly high-resolution snapshot of an individual...
I'm looking at this from a different direction. I don't want my fingerprint to be unique, unless it is truly random on every request. I don't want any server to be able to tie any two requests of mine together without my permission (in the form of headers/cookies). That's the whole cookie/tracking argument right there. If you are isolated from a crowd, unique, then you can be tracked and analyzed.
I used Panopticlick, and no one else who has used Panopticlick had the same fingerprint. The meat of the uniqueness was in Browser Plugins and System Fonts. Think about that... If you've installed a few random fonts you found online, you're probably sending a unique font signature. If you've grabbed a few plugins, messed around with extensions, then you're probably sending a unique plugin signature.
Ack, typo. What I meant to say was that, even if you're not completely uniquely identified by your information, if you're so rare that only a few people on earth have your information, it's just as bad.
I ran across this comment of yours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 - and certainly appreciate your privacy concerns. A healthy private life is undoubtedly everyone's personal choice.
At the same time, HackerNews is YCombinator's tech blog, and highly visible. Frankly, your opinion comes off as somewhat paranoid. It's not that it isn't justified, I'm not saying that one way or another, but I would strongly consider the impact statements like this have on your image in the social space.
I heard back from Kenneth. He actually said that your social strategy is a "shambles", which is excusable, and also that you "had 0 interest in improving this" -- which is not.
He said that you were more interested in getting to the moon than in building a social network around the project.
blhack, the money we entrusted you with not appropriate to spend idly dreaming up conspiracy theories.
The world is social. People chirp, tweedle, and most recently iMessage those they care about and feel a community with.
This community is now your top priority. I want to be able to show Ken that you have put together at least 10,000 likes and 30,000 followers by the end of the year. Consider this "stage one" of your rocketry design phase.
While we are not saying that failure to meet this metric means the board will necessarily replace you, consider it a part of your job description.
We are also denying your proposed budget. Please work on your social program.
Hey guys! Just wanted to give an update! We hired my cousin, who has a lot of experince building model rockets, and have begun exploring launch sites! The meatball sandwiches that those of you are getting at the $6 level should be coming out soon. Pick them up at subway with a $5 shipping fee.
Also, we are going to need a little bit more money for our new office in downtown San Francisco. See attached picture of our espresso machine.
You should know that we are disrupting the moon industry right now. Android.
You miss all the moonshots you don't take. Remember that.
Sir, I read about your CTO position you posted on Craigslist. Since we both read on Quora that the future of computing is Cobol then we are like brothers already. I know a guy who installed PHP and he has a friend on Facebook(my other friend even saw it). I'll give you his username on ExpertSexChange but I need a corner office and vesting in 6 months.
P.S. Everyone will have forgotten the lawsuit against Charbucks by now. We can sell some of the extra coffee beans from the leftovers burned on the "launchpad." Ebay?...I have 91% satisfaction account. I await your Linked-In Connection so we can start the next part to hire me. I am ready to live in a valley.
P.P.S You still on my _ ? Sir, Your photo looks different now than the one on your Instagram.
That was quick (going through the first seed), but justified. In view of your momentum and execution we are approving another seed of $2mil for the next twelve months in San Francisco as detailed under separate cover. The name is fantastic. Please run the final logo by us before putting it up, otherwise keep up the great work and we look forward to more.
This is great, bordering on brilliant satire. I don't even want to think of how much effort was required to create this comment - but, there is at least one person, who really appreciated it.
It appears to be a satirical, role-playing meta-comment about the new social web being creepy. The post seems to contain a bunch of quasi-personal info mined from the web.
What? I'm not sure what's going on here. If you want to send blhack an email, do that. This personal letter is not an appropriate use of HN comments. And sending private messages in public is quite non-cool.
They should have provided clear notification on the next login with a link to the details of the implementation. I recall no such action occurring in anyway.
I don't want google chrome saving my search history, or to accidentally read an article on some news website that then broadcasts that fact to all of my facebook friends.