liz_marcs: Oh, look. A new tool for stalkers!

liz_marcs (

liz_marcs) wrote,
@ 2009-07-30 09:44:00

Current mood:	pessimistic
Current music:	BSG 3 - All Along the Watchtower \| Powered by Last.fm

Oh, look. A new tool for stalkers!

Oh. Fuck. No.

I can understand having this feature available to people who are being harassed by stalkers and bullies, but making it open and general to every little monkey on the Internet? If you want to talk about a tool that stalkers and bullies can use, here it is!

Fuck. No.

JUST FYI to my FList: The default on this new feature is that all visitors to your LJ will be visible and that you will be visible to all every LJ and community you visit when you visit them, even if you don't comment.

If you want to remain "anonymous" while flitting around various journals and communities on ElJay, you have to click the "DO NOT WANT" option.

Here's the post about this new 'My Guests' feature on ElJay.

entrenous88 has better reading comprehension that I do. The post says that the option default is off. I jumped the gun on that because when I went to my privacy page to shut the option down, the radial button was on "YES DO WANT" option.

In either case, I've opted out of the system. I do reserve the right to opt-in should I get hit with trolls or stalkers, but short of having actual problems, my LiveJournal won't be tracking visitors.

I also won't track visitors here if the option comes up.

(7 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	guiltyred 2009-07-30 02:49 pm UTC (link)
	Jeez. What a neat way to discourage file sharing and music downloads and political discussions and smut, all at the same time! (Reply to this) (Thread)

liz_marcs
2009-07-30 03:25 pm UTC (link)

There are similar options on Facebook and LinkedIn believe it or not, but since I use those more in a RL professional capacity I'm not too worried about them.

However, when you're using a service in a more freewheeling way, I'm thinking the DO NOT WANT issue looms large. I sure as hell wouldn't want it on any journaling service because I can just imagine all the online and RL drama that could result.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

das_dingsi
2009-07-30 06:34 pm UTC (link)

MySpace introduced it as well, at some time in the last two months or so, when I wasn't looking. Same requirement as on LJ -- you can only track people when you also allow for others to track you, which is at least fair. Then there was Last.fm, which had a similar feature but only for paid users (active by default) and without an opt-out for anyone, which made me leave them for good.

I'm a bit torn on the issue, because on the one hand I understand the desire to know who reads you and/or how they found you. On the other hand, 1. it should be opt-IN, always 2. it doesn't make much sense for sites where I'm clicking very randomly, instead of reading in-depth (i.e. MySpace vs. Blogs) and most of all 3. journaling sites are different. For most people, they are quite a personal thing, and the issue of friending / defriending is thorny enough already. Like you said, this feature invites drama.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	red_sunflower 2009-07-30 06:02 pm UTC (link)
	I think is too intrusive unless there are people who will make friend-cut based on the statistics provided by the tool. Still, I don't think is useful at all. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	liz_marcs 2009-07-30 06:12 pm UTC (link)
	Definitely not useful at all, but I can definitely see it as a source of huge drama. About the only good thing about it is that if you want to use it to track people who are nosing in your ElJay without leaving a comment, you have to be willing to be tracked yourself. That's about the only thing it has going for it. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	stewardess 2009-07-30 07:33 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for the heads up. It's unfortunately necessary to regularly visit the privacy settings page at LJ. I just found out my comments were set to YES for the search function. I thought I had to opt in for that. :( (Reply to this)

ardath_rekha
2009-07-30 08:50 pm UTC (link)

Definitely going over there and opting out, asap.

And... uh... tying the two together -- being able to see who's visiting your pages and being seen on other pages -- makes no sense to me. If you're being stalked, you might need/want to go into invisible mode yourself even as you're keeping track of who's coming at you.

Dear LJ: You keep saying "Opt In." I do not think that means what you think it means.

(Reply to this)

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