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  |    |    |  Nice App - Warning about Privacy

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Nice App - Warning about Privacy

Feedback Type:  Commentary

Contributed by: normalizer Saturday, September 09 2006 @ 05:03 AM PDT

Product Platform: MacOSX

Used Product For: Less than a month

Recommend Product: NO

I downloaded and tried this app on a tip from an OWC newsletter. Overall, it's a great app! I like how much nicer it builds pages than iPhoto does on it's own.

That said - what it doesn't tell you up front is that, IF you use Galerie's comment feature (which allows you to let viewers comment on your photo galeries which are hosted on THEIR servers) - it also AUTOMATICALLY assumes you want to share your uploaded/hosted galerie with the world, and publishes a thumbnail and a link to your galerie on their "Gallery of Galeries" website - which contains links to many other galeries, including those containing nudity.

Needless to say, this was a concern to me as I may not wish to share personal family photos with the world by default, nor do I need that kind of hit to my limited bandwidth.

THE ONLY way to keep them private is to go to your Galerie Administration page (which they send you a link to after you signup so you can use their feedback/comment system in with your galeries) and manually select each galerie you want to keep private. You then get a message saying their server will be updated with that preference within 15 minutes.

I went to the software maker's support sight and asked them about this, and why they wouldn't automatically, by default, assume people wanted to maintain their privacy and instead have them choose to share their galeries instead of basically forcing them to opt-out.

Unfortunately, my concerns were summarily dismissed as "trivial" and I was branded a "troll" by one of the authors for asking my questions.

http://www.myriad-online.com/cgi-bin/bbs/YaBB.pl?board=galerie;action=display;num=1156990176

Even though this is free software - don't take your privacy for granted.   

6 of 7 users found this helpful.

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Comments

8 comments |

Nice App - Warning about Privacy - Didier Guillion

From the author :

1- Read the manual to know how to set your galeries to "private". I also explained this to you on the Forum

2- If you find galeries with offending contents, this mean people don't have read the manual, because it is forbidden, send me the reference of these galleries, they will be immediatly removed.

Regads

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Saturday, September 09 2006 @ 10:12 AM PDT


Nice App - Warning about Privacy - cnymike

I agree that privacy should be the default, not the other way around.

With that as the only fault, I must say that Galerie is a pretty amazing program and it is free. Nice. But I do have some concerns about the privacy aspect of the galleries.

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Monday, September 11 2006 @ 05:53 PM PDT


Nice App - Warning about Privacy - itbedave1

Mr. Guillion locked the thread on his forum to prohibit further discussion about the privacy issues. THEN he resorted to calling me a "troll" and indicting me of using sock puppets to post additional criticisms under alternate user IDs - which is not true.

I would be wary of ALL of this company's products, including Melody and Harmony Assistant.

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Tuesday, September 12 2006 @ 03:54 AM PDT


Nice App - Warning about Privacy - itbedave1

In case you needed more clarification of Myriad's support policies - I received this in an e-mail response. You should read it and decide for yourself whether you want to support any of their products:

> I therefore don't think you can claim for any kind of "customer support" from
> a
> freeware author, except receiving your money back (i.e. $0.00) if you are not
> satisfied with the program ;-D
>
> Any support that could be provided to you is a courtesy, not a duty. If the
> authors of the freeware are not eager to read you, your tone, your arguments,
> or whatever, they are absolutely free to answer what they like, to ban you, or
> to take any other action that could please them in order not to hear from you
> again.
>
> The benefit for not being paid for what you do is that there's no moral
> obligation for any gentle feedback when somebody bugs you.
>
> I hope this clarifies the situation,
> Best Regards,

>
> Olivier Guillion
> Myriad
> 22 rue Pierre d'Aragon
> 31200 Toulouse
> FRANCE

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Tuesday, September 12 2006 @ 04:13 AM PDT


Nice App - Warning about Privacy - Didier Guillion

From the author:

And you read the answer ?

Best regards

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Tuesday, September 12 2006 @ 09:15 AM PDT


Nice App - Warning about Privacy - pmccann

Sure: looks like an entirely warranted stance to me. People who offer free services are *not* bound to support users in any way whatsoever, and -- to put it bluntly -- *should* tell obnoxious twerps to take a hike. If you want servants you're going to have to pay for them...

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Thursday, March 08 2007 @ 09:48 PM PST


An attempt to put this war into perspective. - Ronald P. Regensburg

"normalizer" or "itbedave", or whatever other names he used these past days, came to the Galerie support forum, not to ask questions but to lecture us about "privacy". After the initial argument, quite unpleasant from the start, whether or not the issue should be considered a serious violation of users' privacy, we indicated a couple of times that we were investigating possible changes in Galerie that would address his concerns. The first announcement of that kind was made by me _before_ Didier called him a troll (someone who deliberately disturbs forum discussions). However, he completely ignored our suggested changes. Instead, he continued complaining, arguing, making accusations. He even opened new fronts (like here on VersionTracker an on MacInTouch) of what was now a full blown flame war. We had no other choice than to ban him from the Myriad forums.

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Tuesday, September 12 2006 @ 10:51 AM PDT


Too much time... - DonFuego

Some people have too much time. Enjoy such a nice program and be thankful! Stop kidding, for god's sake.

Merci to Toulouse et bonne continuation!
Don Fuego from Germany

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Friday, March 16 2007 @ 05:10 AM PDT