A friend on Gabriola — an elderly soul — blocked the Google Street View car from the road she was on, gave the driver a stern lecture, and sent the vehicle away. Heh.

Anyway. Are you shown on the Google Street View images of Gabriola? And did you know that Google collected a lot more than images as it went around the island? The CBC reports that Google breached Canada’s privacy laws.

Google Street View cars breached Canadian privacy laws by inappropriately collecting personal information through a careless error, the federal privacy commissioner has found.

Our investigation shows that Google did capture personal information — and, in some cases, highly sensitive personal information such as complete e-mails. This incident was a serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart stated Tuesday.

Information collected by Google’s cars included complete email addresses, user names and passwords, names and residential telephone numbers and addresses, and health details, Stoddart said. [continue]

There’s a massive privacy problem here.

When you put all your Gabriola contacts in the to field or the cc field and then send that message, guess what? All recipients can see all of the other recipients’ names and email addresses. So that bulk email you sent? If you did put everybody in the to field or in the cc field, you’ve just blown everybody’s privacy. Many of us don’t want our names and addresses broadcast to all the other recipients on the list.

There’s a better way.

If you must send email to a group of people, please do it this way:

1. In the to field, put only your own email address.
2. Leave the cc (carbon copy) field blank.
3. In the bcc (blind carbon copy) field, put all of your recipients’ addresses.

This way all those people will get your message, but they won’t see the names and email addresses of other recipients.

If you can’t see the bcc field in your email program, you may need to do one simple thing to make it visible. (Like clicking on a button, say.) To find out what that simple thing is, google the name of your email program and the term bcc — you should find everything you need. (See the links below, too.)

One more thing: do all the people you’re writing to want to receive bulk email? I don’t. I want only letters written specifically to me, not stuff somebody decided to blast out to all of Gabriola Island.

If you’ve read all this, thank you so much. If you refrain from adding me to bulk email lists, thank you even more. :-)

Want to send a friend to read this article? Here’s the web address to give your friend: http://gabriolan.ca/email-gabriola/

About bcc:

• bcc definition – about.com
• Blind carbon copy – Wikipedia
• Thanks, no. – thanksno.com
• BCC, please. – bccplease.com
• How does using BCC help reduce spam? – ask-leo.com
• Email etiquette: Use BCC for groups, please – blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq
• Don’t Brush Off Email Privacy – netmanners.com

BCC directions for specific email programs:

• BCC tutorial for Outlook Express users
• How to add Bcc recipients in Gmail

You’re posting on a PUBLIC blog on a very PUBLIC internet about the people places and events that are PUBLIC to you and you’re surprised that someone posted information PUBLICLY about YOU?

OK, bit by bit:

You’re posting on a PUBLIC blog on a very PUBLIC internet about the people places and events that are PUBLIC to you

I have mentioned people like Sheila Malcolmson, who is obviously a very public person. She puts her name and her photo on her website, submits things to newspapers, and so forth. People who hold public office usually do want to be known by the public. I’ve mentioned musicians like The Kerplunks and Victor Anthony, who have websites featuring information about their lives and photos of themselves. The Gabriola people I’ve mentioned by name have chosen to be public people, or have agreed that I can mention them here. I can’t think of a single exception.

If I want to mention somebody on my blog and that person isn’t clearly a public person (or perhaps is one of the public people I’ve mentioned above, but engaged in a private activity) I ask first. Hey, do you mind if I mention this on my blog? and so forth. I respect individual preferences about what people want to share on the internet and what they want to keep private. I ask every time. When I wanted to blog about Iain Lawrence’s dog, Misty, I wrote to Iain first to ask if that would be ok.

When I wrote this Gabriola traffic blog entry, I left the driver’s name out of it, even though I know perfectly well who he is.

and you’re surprised that someone posted information PUBLICLY about YOU?

I haven’t posted my name, initials, usernames, email addresses, or phone number on this blog, or anywhere else. Why would anybody take it upon himself to hunt down my name (not posted here or anywhere) and then out me by posting personal details about me? To me this makes no sense whatsoever.

I try pretty hard to respect other people’s privacy choices. Is it too much to ask that people respect my privacy choices, which should be obvious by what I’ve kept off the web?

(Update: I’ve added a privacy page and put a link to it on the navigation bar.)

I have never posted my name, initials, address, usernames, or other personal details of that nature. That’s because I don’t want that information on the web, you know? Some people value privacy and I’m one of them.

I’ve been surprised over the last year to find that I’ve been a matter of considerable curiosity to a lot of people on Gabriola, and some of you have tried to guess who I am in real life. Some of your guesses have been wildly, crazily, amusingly wrong (though they have led me to people you think are me, which has been interesting), while a few of you have indeed guessed correctly.

I figured that those who knew would be able to respect my privacy, but it turns out that’s not always the case. I was disappointed this morning to find details about myself on somebody else’s website. WTF?

Well, that’s awfully disappointing.

I’ll think about this for a week or so before I do anything, but I’m thinking of:

1. killing this blog altogether
2. making it for subscribers only, so that people will need a username/password in order to read content
3. giving the whole damn blog to somebody else, so that the blog will continue with a different blogger.

Or maybe I’ll feel less depressed about it all a few days down the road.

I’m very sad today. I’m going to have a beer.

Update: the person who posted information about me apologised and removed that information.

I showed my driver’s licence to the teller, then took it back. At the end of the transaction, the teller asked for my licence again, saying now we’ll scan your driver’s licence, so it’ll be in the system.

<boggle />

Since when does this happen? I don’t want my drivers licence scanned, or in the system, I told her. I figured I’d have to have a chat with a supervisor about it, and was already reviewing Canadian privacy legislation in my head.

But there was no objection. Oh, ok, she said, and that was that.

Is the CCCU doing this with all customers? If it’s an option (and clearly it is) then why is it not presented as such?

I can’t fathom why I would I want to provide personal information to CCCU, above and beyond what I have already given them and what is required by law.

If you’ve had an account at CCCU for a while, you’ll remember that their customer data was stolen a few years ago, and it took them months to get around to notifying all of their customers. It didn’t inspire my trust or confidence.

Anyway, why on earth would I provide CCCU with more of my personal information? So the next data thief will have my driver’s licence details and photo, too? I don’t think so.

I was about to register when I spotted this section of the registration form on the instructor’s website:

I understand that the mushroom workshop I attend may be video-taped or photographed. I give Jessica Snider and her assigns the right to publish, and/or reproduce any of these videos and photos of me for stock photography, magazines, advertising, educational, trade show displays, packaging, and any other legal uses of photography in Canada and abroad. I relinquish the right to inspect said photos or videos, and I understand that any of my photos or videos may be digitally altered for artistic or commercial purposes.

Huh what? I don’t bloody think so. Why would I pay to attend a workshop, only to have the instructor profit from selling images of me to some stock photography website? That’s insane.

So I instead of registering for the workshop, I decided I’d do some learning on my own. Want to see my shiny new mushroom identification books? They are:

• National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms
• Mushrooms: A Comprehensive Guide with Over 1,2500 Detailed Photographs
• Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America

From time to time I’ll post a photo of a Gabriola mushroom here, along with information about it, or with my attempts to identify it. You can help with that part, if you like.

UPDATE, fall 2010: Jessica Wolf is offering her Beginner’s Wild Edible Mushroom Workshop on Gabriola again this November. (And yes, the same photography clause is still on the registration form.) This time the workshop is offered through the Gabriola Commons.