Author: Ben Dickson / Source: The Next Web
Every day, millions of people use Google Docs to share and collaborate on documents. And when it comes to working on documents online, few tools match the power and versatility of Google Drive and Google Docs. But like all online tools that provide an open environment for many people to share data, Google Docs entails privacy risks.
A while back, one of the readers of TechTalks raised expressed concern that a malicious actor was using Google Drive to stalk him and find his identity. “[A] person sent me a public link to a video on their Google Drive. I clicked and viewed the video and then realized the owner was stalking me and trying to find out my identity.
Can he see who I am? Can he trace me by IP address or by my Google Drive account? I saw the video in my Google Drive and deleted it but now I am concerned,” the user asked.In this post, I will go over the privacy issues of Google Drive link-sharing and whether malicious actors can use publicly shared Google Drive files to gather sensitive information about users. The following post focuses on link-sharing in Google Docs, but the same rules also apply to other file types shared in Google Drive. First, let’s see how link-sharing works.
Does viewing publicly shared Google Docs reveal your identity?
Google Drive lets you share your documents with specific people by selecting their Google Account emails. But it also has a link-sharing feature that enables you to share documents with anyone without explicitly including them in the document’s access list. By turning on link sharing, Google Drive produces a URL that gives access to the file. You can publish the URL online or send it to your mailing lists to share it with a large group of people.
Link sharing is widely used to share press releases, online courses and other public documents. Some organizations use link sharing to collaborate on internal documents (it’s a terrible idea).
Now, the question is, if you open a publicly shared Google Doc, does the owner of the document learn your identity?
Explicitly shared documents show the name and avatar of users who have currently opened the document. It also shows a full history of edits made by each user.
In contrast, publicly shared documents show placeholder animal profiles such as “Anonymous Badger,” “Anonymous Kraken” and “Anonymous Camel” to represent users who are currently viewing the document.Even if you’ve logged in to your Google Account while viewing a publicly shared document, your identity will remain secret.
The only exception to this rule is the owner of the document and other users who have explicitly been given access to the Google Doc. Their avatars and names will always be visible when they’re viewing the document.
Bottom line: Viewing publicly…
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