Dangerous Google Networks! Orkut Getting My Yahoo Contacts Without Knowing My PassWd!

IT.com
hello,
it has been months since i visited my profile on orkut.com - a part of google networks.
today i tried to login into orkut and i found something strange:
1>my alternative username as shown by google is actually one of my friend's name- i agree this may happen due to my profile getting hacked when i used cyber cafe last year with keylogging or maybe my password was easy to guess

2>the most strange and shocking thing... orkut shows up a 'friend suggestions by orkut' box in which the profile of not just my friend's-friends(mutual friends) show up but also the profile of the people whom i had e-mailed using 'my yahoo e-mail id' also comes up here.. but the question is........ how come orkut.com come to know of people whom i used to e-mail from my yahoo mail by just knowing my yahoo user id, but without knowing my yahoo mail password..?? are they hacking too..?

3>the most dangerous thing.. in firefox and internet explorer i have google toolbar & yahoo toolbar & ask toolbar. most of the time i feel scared keeping them activated as they maybe tracking my online activities so i keep a wikipedia toolbar and for some reasons my browser's pages open faster when i dint keep a toolbar of any of the search engines like yahoo, google, ask etc and i keep toolbar of wikipedia. google and other search engine staff says that they dont spy on our activities but.. why does it make a difference in browsing speed?

4>i had used the same id in meebo.com which aggregates all contacts of yahoo, google, msn etc into one but does that make orkut know about my yahoo contacts?

the situation is my id: abhishekjha_online[at]yahoo is what i use as an id in yahoo login, meebo login, and also orkut login but the password in all 3 of them are different but how come orkut catch my yahoo contacts and recommend them to me to add in my friend's list? you see the passwords in all 3 sites are different, the id is same but how does the connection happen?.. its something dangerous i think! and one thing to note is also that these contacts are not from my yahoo's address book, these contacts are from the e-mail ids to whom i sent e-mails when i used yahoo mail... some of them also link to some domainers & companies e-mail ids.

what do you suggest?
regards,
Abhishek
 
Re: Dangerous Google Networks! Orkut Getting My Yahoo Contacts Without Knowing My Pas

how come orkut.com come to know of people whom i used to e-mail from my yahoo mail by just knowing my yahoo user id, but without knowing my yahoo mail password..?? are they hacking too..?

Abhishek,

I'm not 100% sure about this, but doesn't Orkut automatically integrate the contacts from the email account that you used to sign up for Orkut? (whether it's a Gmail or Yahoo account etc)

For example, if you try deleting your contacts listed on your Orkut account, you'll also be deleting them from your email account.
 
Re: Dangerous Google Networks! Orkut Getting My Yahoo Contacts Without Knowing My Pas

hmm..
but the thing is that they didn't import contacts from my 'yahoo mail's address book' which is partly accessible via yahoo developer api, rather orkut shows a list of people whom i just sent e-mails and those e-mails are only stored in my yahoo 'sent mails' section and not kept in my yahoo address book at all. you see they are not importing address book contacts, but contacts of people whom i just mailed some time back and didnt keep them in any address book or friends list.

a second important point is that my google id does not have those people's ids imported from yahoo and i double-checked it in my google's a/c, but still then when i use that google id to login into orkut, then orkut can sense a connection between me and the people whom i have not found in my google account's contacts/address book section, rather they are sensing the thingy from my yahoo a/c directly without ever knowing my yahoo password... this i think is a total breach of privacy of yahoo mail a/c holders as anybody on the planet like google or orkut can tell you that you mailed this guy and this guy using yahoo and you know them pretty well and should add them to your friends list on your google or orkut network a/c too... awesome marketing! many people dont realize what is happening but i found this sensing power of orkut as a very strong one, who knows orkut.com maybe reading not just mine, but other people yahoo a/c's sent mail folders too without knowing their yahoo passwords.

and one very important to be noted is that i had never ever kept same passwords on all three sites, just the user id was same. so without knowing my yahoo mail password how can orkut.com know of people whom i sent e-mails. this is total breach of privacy for yahoo mail a/c holders.. what do you think?

im investigating about this and trying to find out any app or code on the web which can import my yahoo mail contacts just by specifying my yahoo user id and without ever knowing my yahoo password. if i feel suspicious.. i may send in a complaint to yahoo & on their developer forums for the breach of privacy thats happening in my case...! and get to know whats actually happening behind the scenes!
 
Re: Dangerous Google Networks! Orkut Getting My Yahoo Contacts Without Knowing My Pas

they are not importing address book contacts, but contacts of people whom i just mailed some time back and didnt keep them in any address book or friends list.

Sorry if I wasn't clear but by "contacts" I meant email addresses that are in your email account - inbox/out box etc (I didn't mean "address book").

I do agree that Orkut should make it clear that they are integrating info from your email account onto your Orkut account.

if i feel suspicious.. i may send in a complaint to yahoo & on their developer forums for the breach of privacy thats happening in my case...! and get to know whats actually happening behind the scenes!

Good luck. Keep us updated.
 

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