I CALL BOYCOTT. at least until we get a fucking opt-out feature.

[timepiececlock]

subject in question

Dear folk who have friended me:

Please do not use the new feature to track posts in my personal journal without my permission. At the moment there is no opt-out feature available to the tracking, and it's making me decidedly uncomfortable. I can't force you guys not to track me (why oh why isn't there an opt-out?) but I'm asking you in good faith not to. It's an honor thing. It's a boycott thing.

I've always believed in leaving the majority of my journal open to the public. I rarely do friends-locked posts, because I like having new people comment on my journal. And I don't like going fully f-locked because then everyone I want to friend can see everything, or I have to make lots and lots of tedius filters that never seem to load properly anyway.

In the use of communities, I think this can be a great tool. For RPGs, especially. But it presents an entirely different issue with personal journals.

If this feature continues with no opt-out available, and given that I can't ban the entire LJ user community from my journal, I might very well go fully friends-locked in the near future. And I'm sorry, but if that happens I'm *not* going to be adding everyone that asks to be added. I'll finalize my list and that will be that.


If you feel the same concerns, I encourage you to copy the first paragraph and post something similar (tailored to your preference) to your own post. Or the opposite, if you disagree. But let people on your flist know how you feel about it. Where do you stand on the tracking system and the privacy in LJ it might affect?


And please, comment here to request an opt-out feature for tracking personal journals. The more we shout, the more likely we are to get the maintainers to hear us. That's what makes the internet so great. Six pages? This post should have THIRTY PAGES.



And now, an open letter.

Dear LJ maintainers,

Please, stop being offended that we don't all like your new "present" for us and try to listen to why so many of us (we who pay money for your service and wish that you take our opinions seriously-- and those who trust you wiht our free accounts as well) want the opt-out feature for the new tracking system.

The assumption you're making about internet users' ability to write code anyway (the excuse you're giving now for how this new feature doesn't supposedly do anything that couldn't be done already) is grossly overestimated. I've been using the internet since middle school, I've been through a four year university, and I couldn't tell you how to write a bot if you paid me to. I learn the code for LJ when I want something from LJ (lj-cuts, for example), and I use that as necessary. I That's what most people do. Most of us can't write code, and couldn't do the kind of tracking you're suggesting could already be done. Not without great pains of tediousness, even if it's relatively simple to learn. Most internet blog stalkers don't have the patience to set it all up on their own. Now they don't need too.

Now it's just a push of a button and someone tracks entire threads in my journal? I don't feel comfortable about this at all. You've removed the largest deterrent to stalking: time and effort. In all truth, we know that there's always some single person out there who knows enough hack codes and whatever to break into our journal if they really wanted to. But most of us have always taken comfort in the gift of being one among many: the fact that it's too much trouble, takes too long, is too confusing, there's too many people to try to follow in such a way... these were all factors that mitigated the always-present threat of privacy invasion on the internet. And in a blog service, this was especially important. But you've removed that natural deterrent by creating something that not only publicly sanctions that behavior, but enables it. By anyone, with no way for us to know if we're being tracked, or to say we don't want to be.

I feel like LJ is the library, we're the average citizens, and you've just turned the entire LJ userbase into the FBI: welcome to track our library checkouts every time without telling us we're being watched.

This makes me nervous, I have to say. I am as of this moment seriously considering if I want to pay for my journal again when my current payment expires. And that's surprising to me-- because I honestly thought I could stay with LJ for at least a few more years, even considered a permanent account if the option came round again.

But with this... I'm not sure. I'm seriously questioning my patronage here.


Disappointed in you guys,

Rashaka

Comments

[beckingham.livejournal.com]

Not planning on using the tracking feature ever, so I certainly will not use it if I don't have permission by default. *salutes*

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

:salutes back:

Thank you. And I will also promise to ask if I should ever desire to track personal journal posts. Community posts? AWESOME. Especially for RPGs. But not for personal journal posts, you know?

[mildmay.livejournal.com]

I won't track your posts or threads, but I think I'm confused about what the tracking system does now. Admittedly, I pay very little attention to LJ updates unless it's about styles or icons, for I am shallow.

Anyway. I've used it once, for RP related purposes. And, I honestly didn't see what the difference between that and just reloading the thread page was. Because you still have to refresh the message center thing for it to show you new comments. Does it do something more complicated than that, though? *so confused*

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

It doesn't otensibly do anything that couldn't be done if you sat with a page open and refreshed it every thirty seconds 24 hours a day.

It tracks public posts, changes in user icons, and a few other things. It sends every comment on that thread/post to the email of the person tracking the post. It creates a comprehensive archiving system of all all the comments in your post, and sends it to anyone who tracks you. And any public post can be tracked.

It used to be a bitch to stalk someone online-- constant monitoring. Now all the things someone might have had to hunt for are hand-delivered. And it's true it's only public stuff, but it's like going around your daily life with cameras on you all the time, and everyone can watch your ever move.

Sure, you could lock all your posts and never leave your house again. But is that what we want from the livejournal service? It's not what I want to be forced into.

There are several comments in pages 5 and 6 on the linked post that go into detail for why this is a security issue. The most frightening is this: if someone posts personal information about you and you delete or screen their comment, it used to be that you had to be either

a) the recipient
b) the poster
c) refreshing the page for the three crucial minutes before the damaging comment got deleted

--in order to see the comment with the informaton you don't want shared.

With the mass tracking system, that comment goes out to the email of every single person who was tracking you/your post at that time. You can delete it, but now it's sitting in the inbox of lord knows how many strangers.

There are other, subtler, problems. Again, I encourage you to read the comments in the link in my post. They explain a lot clearer than I.

[mildmay.livejournal.com]

Ahh. Okay, I can see how that could turn into a problem.

Also, what's the point of tracking someone else's user pics. o.O

Anyway. I doubt I'll be using it again. I'm perfectly happy just occasionally reloading discussion (or wank) threads I'm following.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'm also weirded out by the idea that anyone can create a journal, track my posts, and very soon create an entire history of my journal saved in their own stuff. As if they had copied every single page of my journal by hand, only now it's done for them. I don't want someone profiling me. I don't want someone profiling the 14 year old Sasuke fangirl who just wants to draw fanart and be 14.

That could be done before... but it's so much *easier* with this.

Best to read the linked post though, to make sure I haven't gotten anything confused. But no matter what, this system has great potential to be abused. We should have the right to prevent tracking if we choose.

I think tracking in communities is fine-- hell, it'd be useful. Especially for long discussion posts. But communities and journals are different social arenas with different expectations of privacy-- even little or moderate privacy.

[memlu.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

THank you for pointing it out in your journal.

I heard there was some way you could remove the thumbtack buttons through CSS or CCS or whatever that customization thing is. Ignoring doesn't fix it, but it's a start. I'll have to find out exactly how, though.

[japewierd.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom

You might as well save yourself the bother of working it out, if someone still wants to track you all they have to do is amend ?style=mine to the URL for your post and they'll still get the thumbtacks (at least that's the way I understand it), and there are other ways but that's the simplest.

The average LJ user might not know that but I can guarantee a stalker would ;)

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing this isn't an issue for people who are f-locked all of the time anyway?

(I'm not too quick on the uptake. You should know this by now.)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

That's what they're saying should be the answer for everyone who complains: just lock everything and then we can't be tagged. Kinda misses the point.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

Kinda misses the point.

I should say so. I skimmed through some of the complaints and I understand where everyone is coming from - both sides. Still, they should limit the feature to communities only. That's what I think, anyway, and not have it available to personal accounts.

Also, after reading some of the responses, the LiveJournal creative team do not present themselves in a very professional manner.

[littleduchess.livejournal.com]

Okay- I've read through the comments and I think I've got a good idea of what you are talking about though I'm not familiar with the feature. I promise I will never use it on you and, to be honest, can't think of an occasion where I would use it. Bit creepy for me.

However does this mean that you would rather I avoided commenting on any of the more personal (ie- not fan-related) posts that I see through my friends pages? I would understand completely if you would prefer that, and would hate to have made you feel uncomfortable in any way. Or do I have the wrong end of the stick here?

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

However does this mean that you would rather I avoided commenting on any of the more personal (ie- not fan-related) posts that I see through my friends pages? I would understand completely if you would prefer that, and would hate to have made you feel uncomfortable in any way. Or do I have the wrong end of the stick here?

No, any post that I choose to make public is public, and you are welcome to comment. It's the systematic tracking that bothers me. And I am choosing not to use it as a personal statement more than anything else, because I know "asking nicely" rarely works on most of the internet. Thank you, though. :)

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

Done and Done.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I don't pay attention to what is done to LJ most of the time, but this is unnerving. Especially the admin's responses to people with concerns.

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

I made an entry in my own LJ here (http://gweniveeve.livejournal.com/236483.html). The only things that I imagine I would track would be highly interesting conversations on communities. (And not on personal journals if the user has specifically asked for it not to happen).

About the stalking, I disagree that the "deterrents" to stalking are time and effort. What makes stalkers what they are is that they are happy to give lots of time and effort to devote to the object of their obsession, especially if they don't have to leave their computer chair. Nothing else interests them. However, if there's a simple "tracking" feature, then all their work is done for them, and it's not as much fun.

Buuuut the tracking feature doesn't allow stalkers to do anything that they couldn't do by bookmarking someone's journal or checking them frequently. Is there a possibility it will be abused? Certainly. But there's already a chance that a stalker has gone around and linked to all the threads they can find and spends all day checking them obsessively.

I do think an "opt-out" would be good, especially for personal journals (I think the most useful application of tracking would be in communities).

Just my two (or three, or fifty) cents.

[spikespeigel.livejournal.com]

Please explain this tracking feature to me. Possibly with pictures. Because this is the first I'm hearing about it.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

The link in the post explains it pretty simply.

Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I really hope that they don't allow an opt-out for the tracking system. I was really excited when they implemented it because I read a lot of meta posts and often continue to go back to read the discussion after I've commented and see if there are any interesting new comments or threads. It's quite difficult to do so the way LJ is now, especially when threads collapse, as often happens on interesting discussions.

Because people tend to be easily freaked out, I can see a lot of people getting paranoid like you and deciding to opt-out if given that option, including people who might write something that ends up linked on metafandom. If people opt out of it, that makes the feature essentially useless to me. I think the paranoia and panic is completely unwarranted and, to be honest, rather narcissistic (everyone seems to think they've got legions of people just waiting for the chance to stalk them).

LJ is public. The web is public. If it bothers you (general) that much, then maybe you ought to post everything friends-only.

Also here via metafandom

[redatt.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely with this.

I don't have a lot of time to spend keeping up with the the posts/threads I'm interested in and this feature will help a lot. It's much better than relying on third party tracking systems which bexone mentions.

This feature is a long overdue, one which makes using LJ as a commuity of individual journals much more easy.

but, if you want to discuss making the tracking feature opt-outable, you might be interested in this post" (http://community.livejournal.com/suggestions/638387.html) on suggestions.

[bexone.livejournal.com]

You do realize that there are -- and have been for quite some time -- external sites that will do exactly the same thing that the LJ system does?

http://watchthatpage.com
http://trackengine.com
...and I'm sure there are others.

Checking for updates, sending them in emails, the lot. All the LJ one really does differently is collect it handily in the same webspace as your friendspage (if you're using the message center instead of email notifications.) For that matter, most browsers can be configured to check a page against the cache periodically and notify you when it changes. You have never been "secure" from random people A, B, and C silently tracking your publically visible journal and knowing how and when it changes.

[delurker.livejournal.com]

So, the fact that I've been refreshing this page for the past few hours while I've done other stuff and thought about how to respond - how is that any different to the tracking feature? It is no more effort for me to hit refresh here than to refresh my email.

I mean, the thing is that people can already read/check/track your journal without your knowledge, and chances are good that they already are. And you don't need leet skillz to do it, either.
To read your journal without you knowing, people can:

1) Bookmark it and check it regularly
2) Read the flist of communities - public posts of members show up there (I know of at least one person who's read my journal this way)
3) Read the RSS feed
4) Browse your journal because you said something interesting and they want to read more that you've said
5) Follow random clicks
6) Follow links to specific posts (and then go on and browse) - I mean, I came here from metafandom, and I'm sure not everyone who read this post commented

Personally, I once found part of an entry I made that had been ripped to a dubious "job search" website and posted as a comment to a random webpage. Why did someone do that? Honestly, I have no idea. I have no idea why they chose (did they choose?) my journal, either. But it happened. And it had nothing to do with the tracking system, either.

Bottom line, the tracking feature is quite literally nothing that people could not already do. I don't need to make a bot: I can just bookmark your journal! Tracking might make it easier for a few more people to read your journal without your knowledge, but it doesn't start something new.

If you're worried about people watching you without your knowledge, than LJ already has a fix for that - you can flock your posts. In the end, the tracking system removes nothing but the illusion of privacy.

[angelhunter.livejournal.com]

I am with you on wanting a opt-out feature. Is it really asked too much to give us a choice if we want to be tracked or not?

I don't give a flying fuck if people are able to track my stuff already with some awesome scripting-fu or webservice. That is not the point, in my opinion.

The point is that AGAIN LJ has surprised us with a new fugly gimmick that not everyone likes. Just this time without giving us the chance to opt out of it. What's the matter, LJ? Pissed off that not everyone liked your other new pwetteh gadgets? *snort*

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Actually it wasn't a surprise. I'd read about it in one of LJ's official forums many moons ago (I can't remember exactly which one, a couple of them changed hands a while ago, if someone else knows please tell me).

I also don't need anything fancy to 'track changes' never have, it's a few mouse clicks no matter HOW I do it, the only difference is that the onus of the CPU power is now no longer on my PC, it's on LJ's servers which I'm totally fine with.

And frankly, you've been able to do this within the context of LJ for a long time, you just needed to use the rss feed or the OPML feed or one of a NUMBER of feeds they've provided for as long as I can remember (though possibly that was only completely implemented within the last year or so).

There is no 'choice' in wanting to be tracked in terms of your public postings, once you put something on the internet it's there and this isn't exactly a new idea either.

[bexone.livejournal.com]

As Brad said, they've been talking about implementing this for 4.5 years. LJ is actually pretty transparent about what they're doing (lj_dev, lj_biz, lj_design, suggestions, paidmembers, news and I'm sure I'm forgetting other sources of info) -- so long as they've put the info out there and available for all users to look at, it's not their responsibility to police the system and make sure everyone's actually reading it.

As delurker said, all this does is strip away the false sense of security a lot of people seem to have had about who could see their posts -- and, in the end, if it makes more users think twice about posting things publically, it works out to a net security improvement.