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Andreas Creten replied on October 07, 2008 14:03 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

http://blog.hellomynameise.com/?p=28

Andreas Creten replied on September 26, 2008 09:07 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Hey guys

I just want to write a quick reaction to this topic.

We sure made a mistake by switching on the automatic tweeting from your Twitter accounts, but as soon as we got reaction on the auto-post we removed it.

In my opinion you really need to be careful with your login information for social networks, but to integrate Twitter with a service like E we just need to store your username and password. We would love it te be able to use a system like OAuth for our Twitter integration but they simply don’t support it yet. We ask social networks to provide OAuth support instead of the standard HTTP authentification.

Regards

Andreas

(copied from http://socialmediablend.com/2008/09/2...)

psd replied on September 25, 2008 19:44 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Yeah, I'm normally very cautious with my twitter password, but these guys had me food, and boy do I now feel stupid for trusting them!

If Twitter implemented OAuth, I could have allowed this app to only read my tweets. Wonder what happened to: http://twitter.com/oauth - it used to be an API

Tom Morris replied on September 25, 2008 19:29 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

You give someone your password, and they do something malicious with it. It's not right. But it's not exactly unexpected. There's a simple solution: stop giving your password to websites whenever they ask for it. Keep doing that and they'll stop asking and blimmin' well implement OAuth.

A comment on the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Yep, agreed. It needs to be opt-in.
Any startup in this arena should be well aware of these kind of concerns and not even consider doing stuff like that. It shows a lack of understanding on their part I think, which is disappointing – Richard Barley, on September 25, 2008 15:11

Richard Barley replied on September 25, 2008 15:07 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Yep, all credit to them for responding quickly, although my question is whatever made them think it was a good idea in the first place (http://twitter.com/richard_barley/sta...). But there you go, I guess I just get a bit agitated by htings like this.

A comment on the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

"The autotweet function was something we implemented to test Twitter service integration. A lot of people liked to share their E usage over Twitter, but we decided to take it out after complaints. It might return as an option. Post your feature requests, feedback and rants to the Feedback pane in E or use Get Satisfaction!"

http://twitter.com/hellomynameise/sta...

http://blog.hellomynameise.com/

I think it is fine that they reintroduce the autotweet at a later date, providing they make it blatantly clear to users and offer an opt-in / opt-out function. – Justin Stevens, on September 25, 2008 15:03

Justin Stevens replied on September 25, 2008 14:57 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

@hellomynameise just publicly acknowledged people's concerns in the following tweet:

http://twitter.com/hellomynameise/sta...

Hopefully that will be the end of it. If so, props to the team for acting & responding so quickly!

I expect a response on the matter will be forthcoming.

A comment on the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

LOL. Oops! – Richard Barley, on September 25, 2008 14:51

Richard Barley replied on September 25, 2008 14:50 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Contacted them to terminate my account. Got email soon after from the lead PM saying "Apologies, we are sorry for the inconvenience, and we will terminate your account immediately."
I wonder how many more he's going to have to send like that? Perhaps a message in tihs thread might head it off at the pass...

Justin Stevens replied on September 25, 2008 14:44 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Love this:

E's privacy gold standard rules:

"E does not facilitate spam and does not support the activities of spammers":

http://tinyurl.com/3lzrkg

peeebeee replied on September 25, 2008 14:14 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Bad, bad, bad.

A comment on the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

These are the services they (plan to) integrate with: http://skitch.com/mario/s795/e-services

Only tried twitter and not using the other 2 services that are live, but would want some reassurance from E before adding any additional services now.. – Mario Menti, on September 25, 2008 14:03

Richard Barley replied on September 25, 2008 13:54 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Sadly we just don't know and that's the worry isn't it?

Nice Paul replied on September 25, 2008 13:51 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

I almost signed up for the beta, until I realised they were doing this. Now I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole! Is it just Twitter they do this with? Would I give them my Gmail details so they can see my address book, only for them to email everybody about their new service?

Nice Paul marked one of adactio's replies in E as useful. adactio replied to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad.".

ni replied on September 25, 2008 13:44 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Won't be adding Twitter or anything else to my E account. Shame, looked like a cool service at first.

Richard Barley replied on September 25, 2008 13:43 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

Yep, add me to the list of pissed off people here. Damage is done already, but I'll not be using this service any more. If you can;t get this simple thing right, it doesn't bode well for the future.

Mario Menti replied on September 25, 2008 13:42 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

To be fair, any service integrating with the twitter API at this point in time is forced to use the "password anti-pattern", at least until twitter start supporting oAuth or something similar.

This doesn't excuse the sending of the initial twitter message on the user's behalf of course, which irritates me too, but I think it's worth keeping these 2 issues separate.

Tom Armitage replied on September 25, 2008 13:39 to the problem "Automatically posting to twitter - bad." in E:

I'm not an E user, but I was irritated by the automatic message from my friends who are trying it, and I'm sure they wouldn't have sent it if they had a choice.

Worst of all, they've typed their password for another service into E, which is a major security problem - the "password anti-pattern" Jeremy mentions - and the E website doesn't make it nearly clear enough that in order to use this service, you must hand over your credentials for other services. It's couched in way too much fluffiness - users should understand the seriousness of what they're doing when they sign up to E.