Google is Finally Doing Something About Google Drive Spam (arstechnica.com) 15
You can now block people in Google Drive. From a report: A notification pops up on your phone: "Click here for hot XXX action!" It's Google Drive again. Someone shared a document containing that title, and now your phone is begging you to look at it. Even if you ban Google Drive from generating phone notifications, you'll still get emails. If you block the emails, you'll have to see the spam when you click on the "shared" section of Google Drive. The problem is that Drive document sharing was built with no spam-management tools. Anyone who gets a hold of your email is considered to be an important sharer of valid documents, and there has been nothing you can do about it -- until now.
Google officially acknowledged the problem back in 2019, and the company said it was making spam controls "a priority." Now, more than two years later, Google is finally rolling out the most basic of spam tools to Google Drive sharing -- you can block individual email addresses! The company announced this feature in May, but the tool is rolling out to users over the next 15 days. Soon, once the spam arrives in your Google Drive, you'll be able to click the menu button next to the item and choose "block user." Drive sharing works just like email spam. Anyone can share a drive file with you if they know your address. Documents that have been shared with you still automatically show up in your Drive collection without your consent. There's no way to turn off sharing, to limit sharing to approved users, or to limit it to existing contacts. It's a free-for-all.
Google officially acknowledged the problem back in 2019, and the company said it was making spam controls "a priority." Now, more than two years later, Google is finally rolling out the most basic of spam tools to Google Drive sharing -- you can block individual email addresses! The company announced this feature in May, but the tool is rolling out to users over the next 15 days. Soon, once the spam arrives in your Google Drive, you'll be able to click the menu button next to the item and choose "block user." Drive sharing works just like email spam. Anyone can share a drive file with you if they know your address. Documents that have been shared with you still automatically show up in your Drive collection without your consent. There's no way to turn off sharing, to limit sharing to approved users, or to limit it to existing contacts. It's a free-for-all.
Block individual addresses? (Score:3)
you can block individual email addresses!
Don't the spammers keep creating new email addresses? What am I missing. Sounds like asking me to personally block every email address from which I get spam.
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Don't the spammers keep creating new email addresses? What am I missing. Sounds like asking me to personally block every email address from which I get spam.
That's why Google Drive is still useless, even with this (too little, too late) "feature" fix.
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Relax, now that the blacklist is done they can get to work on a whitelist, it'll be done in no time - just another couple of years.
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Yes it's stupid, just like the phone number block list on their messages app.
I prefer the opposite approach of separating my texts into favorites, contacts, and recents. I have separate notification settings for these groups too, so I don't get any notifications at all about texts that are from people I don't know. If I'm logging in somewhere and they're sending a code I just go to the recents tab to find it.
Companies that are all about that viral growth seem to consistently be very slow on implementing rea
Not my phone (Score:3)
Glances over at my lovely POTS telephone.
Nope, my phone is squarely telling it to fuck off.
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Beause it's not their spam. Duh!
Huh (Score:2)
Never once have I ever witnessed this.
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the problem here is simple
google drive allows anyone to push notifications at anyone else so long as they have their email address - and thats clearly the wrong way to ever do it - you dont hand everyone a megaphone and then complain about the noise
ooh! A new way to SWAT people... (Score:3)
1. Upload CP to Google Drive.
2. Target gets notification.
3. Anonymously "tip off" FBI.
4. FBI raids target, finds CP "in target's Drive collection".
FBI: Did you know the CP was there?
T: No!
T has now lied to Feds about "possession" of CP, because he has the notification / email, and a jury will bury him.
FBI: Did you know the CP was there?
T: Well, yeah, I guess, but it's not mine, there's nothing I can do about it.
T has now admitted to "possession" of CP, and a jury will bury him.
Too little, too late. Gdrive is dead (Score:2)
Too little, too late. GDrive is dead (to me at least).
Great. I can block the one-shot email that's already been fired.
If you're still using Google Drive for anything more critical than dumping screenshots from Pokemon Go then I don't want to hear from you.
Allow blocking by (sub)domain or don't bother... (Score:2)
With Gmail, Google Voice, Google Drive, etc. if one cannot block an entire (sub)domain—like *.amazonaws.com or *.uk.org—then blocking is useless: serious spammers regularly generate random usernames & random hostnames to thwart individual email address blocking.
Either do it right or don't bother.
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