8:30pm January 23, 2014

➸ A discussion on how Google outs trans people

eatingsoapboxes:

clatterbane:

A discussion on how Google outs trans people

For a company that purports to be LGBTQ friendly, this most certainly is not friendly.

http://www.zdnet.com/google-outed-me-7000025416/

Linking to Talia’s post instead of the original article, because there is already some interesting discussion in comments there.

A woman was using her old (male) name at work, and when her Android phone updated to KitKat - with Google+ integrating chat and SMS into “hangouts” - this is what happened when she texted a coworker:

Google’s response was that her outing was “user error” - Google blamed her, the user for not understanding the new, confusing integration.

I have been able to avoid switching it over on my phone so far since updating to KitKat, because the new interface looked like a mess. (And I don’t even have any particular privacy concerns there.) My partner actually works for them, and has managed to IM instead of texting me multiple times. User error, sure. They shouldn’t be making it that easy.

Since the release of the latest mobile software Android 4.4, codenamed KitKat, the instant messaging app Hangouts has become the default text-messaging app on phones and tablets running with the newly installed operating system.

But Sorenson wasn’t the only transgender person made unsafe by Google+ in Google’s ruthless objective to use Android for reorganizing peoples’ lives to suit Google’s bottom line.

Four days later on January 7, transgender Android user Zoe posted to Google Product Forums > Hangouts that she now needed to change her name and gender display. She did not receive a response.

The same day (and While Ms. Sorensen was waiting fretfully for her employer’s HR person to return to work) Android user Nora posted “Legal name instead of actual desired/registered name shows up in Hangout History“ to Google Product Forums > Google Chat:

I’m transgender… this account was registered using my preferred name, Nora, but when I look at hangout histories, certain locations on my android phone, and a few other places, I see my legal name popping up instead.

I don’t remember actually giving this detail to Google, nor can I find anywhere within the settings where anything other than “Nora” is listed… I don’t know how many other people can see me listed as such, but it’s really kind of unpleasant and outing, and a bit triggering really…

That really does not sound good. And there’s more there from other trans people who have not been pleased with some changes to Google services.

On some level, I want to imagine that Google will fix this.

I don’t want to think that controlling our own identities doesn’t matter to Google; or it’s as if to Google we are the faulty parts of its machine. Or we are Google Plus with a body vaguely attached. Or to Google, the problems are our own faults, and any calls for respect or privacy in a painful world are just annoying to Google, which has better things to do, like terrify us with the privacy nightmare of Google Glass and making bulk data consolidators’ jobs of cataloging our personally identifying information easier.

I wasn’t happy with the "real” names policy, and have not been so confident in some other things related to privacy and the heavy reliance of Android devices on Google services. Their responses in these particular cases do not exactly inspire confidence, when we are talking about people’s safety at stake. “User error” with a confusing interface, or no. :(

I STILL have not found out how to get my name changed on Google+ despite having changed my name on literally every form I can find. It is frustrating as hell that someone I email one time could get that information, the integration talked about above is all the more justification for me to never update my phone.

Here is some hopefully helpful info on that: http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/42829/cant-change-google-profile-name

I wouldn’t have thought to also check the “send mail as” setting, but that may be a good idea too.