[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation switching to Google Apps?

[Risker]

On 26 October 2010 11:00, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 26 October 2010 14:23, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't possibly care less what
> > office software the Foundation uses. I suppose the paranoid conspiracy
> > theory of a Google takeover fueled by illicit access to WMF data
> > doesn't strike me as remotely realistic.
>
>
>
Google's greatest weakness is in the privacy sector.  Anyone remember when
they turned on Buzz and suddenly there was all kinds of personal information
made available because they linked people's multiple accounts?  Well, the
same thing holds for all their other applications.

One might think that people operating within the WMF, and in the higher
levels of the chapters, are likely to have publicly linked their "real life"
names with their wiki-identities, but that is not always the case; there are
definitely chapter-level people who have not done so. Maintaining that
separation is very difficult and needs to be checked on a regular basis,
since Google changes their algorithm periodically. Using Google Apps may
have the unintentional side effect of deterring valuable contributors from
participating in certain activities.

Certainly, oversighters on English Wikipedia have had to deal with the
fallout of personal information being unintentionally revealed by editors
who were unaware of this situation with Google.  When we are providing
information on how to address perceived privacy violations, we include a
recommendation to those who use Gmail to review all of their Google-related
accounts and ensure that they remove all links.

Risker/Anne