Google Begins Blocking Third-Party Jabber Invites 92
New submitter kxra writes "Do you have a federated jabber instant messaging account that never gets responses from Google accounts anymore? Or do you have a Gmail account that a friend has been unable to invite from their 3rd party Jabber account? The Free Software Foundation reports, 'Google users can still send subscription requests to contacts whose accounts are hosted elsewhere. But they cannot accept incoming requests. This change is akin to Google no longer accepting incoming e-mail for @gmail.com addresses from non-Google domains.' This sounds like something Facebook would try in order to gain even tighter control over the network, but they never even federated their Jabber service to begin with. According to a public mailing list conversation, Google is doing this as a lazy way to handle a spam problem."
No Subject (Score:1, Insightful)
This is great because I keep receiving spam invites on one of my GMail accounts.
Just wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Countdown to those with bad reading comprehension wondering why the story isn't about Google not accepting e-mail from non-@gmail.com accounts.
TFS last sentence untrue (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing in that conversation says that Google is doing this (not actually blocking all foreign invites, but sharply limiting the number from each foreign domain) as a lazy way to handle a spam problem; that conversation points to an extremely large spam invite problem, and discusses potentially needing to do it if the operators of the federated domains from which the spam is originating cannot address the problem. It also addresses some of the steps taken by operators of those domains to address the problem (as of the most recent message I can find, it also seems like those methods have not yet been dealt with the problem.)
It very much sounds like the goal is to deal with the problem with the other service operators, but to take immediate steps to stem the flow of spam until an acceptable resolution is attained. The author of TFS may think this is "lazy", but it is not accurate to attribute that description to the email thread.
Re:No Subject (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the significant difference? Isn't refusing jabber messages from non-google account just as bad, and bad for the same reasons, as refusing email from non-google accounts?
Re:Google has been quite evil this week (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, its evil to decide that its no longer worth providing a free service that youve provided for years, and giving your users several months to take an export of their data.
Likewise, apparently its evil to stop allowing users to host apps which undermine your core businesses on your freely provided marketplace.
Of course, given that you never offered a free RSS reader or marketplace to begin with, wouldnt that make you more evil than Google?
Re:CAPTCHA (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear, I'm sure the engineers at Google are trying to do what they can do deal with the spam problem, as quickly as they can.
I'm just feeling cynical about Google's motives and actions after what they've done with Google Reader, CalDAV, etc. Yeah, they're a for-profit corporation, but it's disappointing how they seem to be moving away from open standards.
At this point, it seems like they're looking around and saying: "Hey, we have a proprietary solution, and an open solution, but it costs extra to maintain both. If we shut down the open solution, we save money and get extra lock-in too. It's win-win! -- for us, at least."
So I'm slightly worried that when a situation like this comes up, the managers at Google (or managers' managers, or wherever the directive is coming down from) are just going to say "do the minimum amount of work and get back to that other project we have you working on", where implementing solution that's good for the users is not a priority.
Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
The significant difference between blocking email and blocking jabber requests is that when you find that your jabber request is blocked, you can ask the person on the Google side to send you a request from their end, and from then on you can communicate with them.
What happens if everyone implements this policy of denying all foreign requests?
Re:Google has been quite evil this week (Score:5, Insightful)
1) As they dont pay for Google Reader or Play market, thats irrelevant.
2) So once someone offers a free service, you demand that they offer it forever? Sounds reasonable.
3) Yes, I was remarking on how you can go to www.dataliberation.org in the next several MONTHS and get your data out. Have you ever tried getting your data out of AOL or Hotmail or someone else's systems? It tends to be a royal PITA. Never with Google, they always have at LEAST a CSV export.
But if you want to be both a beggar AND a chooser, dont let me stop you.