Heads up: more bad behavior from LJ

[feuervogel]

They are adding your location to all comments with IP logging on. Retroactively. (release notes) This is much more accurate than plugging it into a reverse IP site, reportedly.

If you (on LJ) log IP and are not among the subset of people I want knowing my address, I won't be commenting any more. I'll also be checking to see if I have that turned on (only for anonymous, I think) and turn it off if I do.

Slowly, LJ gives me more reason to consider shutting down.

ETA: They're rolling back the changes in response to the comments on the release post. Thank fuck.

Comments

[krait]

ETA: They're rolling back the changes in response to the comments

WHY DO THEY THINK THESE THINGS ARE GOOD IDEAS TO START WITH, THOUGH?!

Seriously, LJ, explain this to me. WHY would you think that ANYONE would WANT such a feature, and why would you think it so strongly that you actually rolled out the feature a.s.a.p. rather than, say, bandying it about first to get some user opinions?

Maybe I'm missing something (possible; I am a non-FB, non-Twitter, non-iProduct-using LJ user, so I suspect I'm rather behind times/atypical), but seriously: do people really want other people on the Intarwebz to know where they are? Do people on the Intarwebz really want to know where random people happen to be when posting? What's the POINT?

[picklish]

I have a hard time feeling bothered by this. There are plenty of things that LJ has done that are super problematic, but this isn't one of them.

The only information they have is your IP address, so it can't be "more accurate than a reverse IP site." The only result from that post's test is that it's more accurate than IPLocator. Maybe LJ is using a different reverse IP site.

If somebody had IP logging on and wanted to be malicious, the information is already there. They could even use a browser extension to provide the exact same immediate on-page information that LJ had planned to.

Besides, if somebody wanted to use that information maliciously, doing an IP to location lookup wouldn't even be a bump in the road.

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

SUP seriously sucks. I use IP Logging for anons because of trolls and spammers. I ... can't even remotely imagine a situation where I would *want* to know the locations of my user-commenters automatically. If they want to provide it great.

I seriously wonder about these guys sometimes because it's like they develop features nobody wants and implement things without any kind of userbase test/surveying to see if anyone really even wants it.

I miss the old BradFitz days. LJ hasn't been the same since then. I'd like to move more and more, but my friends are here, and I've got some who absolutely refuse to use Dreamwidth.

[tiercel]

They're removing it, according to the release notes.

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Well yay that they've changed their minds! But at least it provided me the incentive to check my settings and realize i had IP logging turned on for everyone instead of just anonymous comments. Not sure how it got like that =P