Whoops! Students "Going Google" Get to Read Each Other's Emails
A recent bug in Google Apps allowed students at several colleges to read each other's email messages and some were even able to see another student's entire inbox. The issue occurred at a small handful of colleges, admitted Rajen Sheth, senior product manager for Google Apps, but he declined to say how many other institutions were affected. However, according to Donald Tom, director of IT for support services at Brown University, one of the institutions undergoing the transition, he got the impression that a total of 10 schools faced the problem.
While the glitch itself was minor and was fixed in a few days, the real concern - at least at Brown - was with how Google handled the situation. Without communicating to the internal IT department, Google shut down the affected accounts, a decision which led to a heated conversation between school officials and the Google account representative.
Details of the Glitch
In the case of the Google Apps glitch, which began on Friday, September 11th, a couple of students notified Brown's Computing and Information Services department (CIS) that they were able to read emails belonging to other students. The CIS department contacted Google on the following day and sent out an email to the 200 students whose mailboxes were in transition, asking them whether or not they were experiencing the same problem. Some were. The affected students could either see entire inboxes belonging to another classmate or, in other cases, saw less than 100 messages that did not belong to them.
In the end, only 22 out of the 200 students were affected, but the fix was not put into place until Tuesday. That means that the students had access to each other's email accounts for three solid days (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) as well as parts of Friday and Tuesday before the accounts were suspended by Google.
Oddly enough, this situation seems to be acceptable, according to Tom, who, reports Brown's daily newspaper, "praised Google for its prompt response." (We don't know about you, but if someone else could read our email for three days, we wouldn't exactly call that "prompt.")
Massive data migrations are no small feat and Google's slip-up in this case is certainly not the first nor the last time that something has gone wrong. Still, Google is notably concerned when problems like this happen. "It was a small hiccup along the way and it's an issue we've taken extremely seriously," said Google's Rajan Sheth.
The Real Problem Wasn't Email, it was Lack of Communication
However, the real issue that concerned the university was the matter of communication between Google and the CIS department. Before fixing the issue on Tuesday, Google suspended the affected accounts, a necessary step that was taken so no more data was improperly shared. What angered the IT director, though, was that the accounts were suspended without first notifying CIS.
"I've spoken very forcefully with the account (executive), my boss, senior administrators at Brown -- including the president. (Google needs) to find a better way to communicate with us," said Tom.
When considering a move to a cloud service, most companies and institutions focus on how the change will affect budgets and the bottom line. They also think about data conversion issues and possible needs for re-training in some cases. However, one of the things that doesn't come up as often is exactly how communication will take place between the business and the company involved. Sure, companies may discuss the procedures (use this form, this phone number) and uptime guarantees, but they can't possibly imagine every scenario and spell out how they want the cloud provider to perform.
No longer can company execs just stroll into the I.T. guy (or gal's) office and cry out "my email is messed up!" Now there are a few more hoops to jump through. And whether it's Google or someone else, the interactions that take place and the way the issues are addressed will be a learning experience on both ends.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Are we seeing chunks in Google's armour? Have been hearing a few not so good things about Google of late..
It's sad but this is pretty much how Google deal with customer service. minimalistic.
Over the years I've sent their customer support people several emails with questions/concerns/problems regarding adsense, adwords and gmail.
In about 10 years as a Google user, have a guess how many responses I've had form their customer support?
Zero.
There are plenty of good SAAS email providers out there who actually care about YOUR business.
Give them a call.
On Monday of this week, I experienced a situation with my Gmail account. I don't use Google Accounts, not am I a student, but sometime around 5:30 PM Monday evening, I was suddenly locked out of my entire Google account. I could not access email, calendar, or anything else connected with my Google account.
Nor could I contact Google. Nor did Google contact me, at least not satisfactorily. I eventually was sent a code via SMS, to allow my to reinstate my account, but it took hours to get the message.
Since then, I have been forced to change my password twice.
What was most distressing about the entire incident wasn't that it happened, or the time it took to resolve the issue. What was most upsetting was the fact that Google was so uncommunicative. Google has never had a person-to-person help system, and that is not a good way to do business.
Very unsettling.
That's quite a BIG glitch. I wouldn't want other students reading my inbox. Hopefully there wasn't anything too personal in there. Back to Yahoo! email they go!
Google will have to work fast to undo this bad publicity. I certainly hope they realize how much damage this could do, not just for themselves but for all those organizations that have bought into the Google Apps cloud, and for the develoepr community who have committed to Google technology. As previous posts have said, mistakes happen, but Google's customer relations needs a makeover.
Hmmm I would take it really serious. I can never think that some one is reading my emails for complete THREE days and suddenly my accounts are locked without any information. Its an electronic age where many people cant afford their mail system being peeped for days and later locked by provider. I would prefer to better stay away with such system.
Google need to make their mail system more stable (to avoid outages for more than 10 hours) and secure or else users will have to see less funky but better secure mail systems.
Should have been using Zimbra instead :)
Is this an example of big companies being good at product development, but not customer service, since they have to serve tens of thousands and thousands of customers? This is why Microsoft lets out service to third parties, who are more responsive and in sync with local needs.
Smaller vendors have the advantage of being more responsive to customers, because they're focused on a single product, and have a manageable customer base, AND have to earn every customer.
Google cuks. It creates funny products that are great for hobbyists and fanboys, but *NOT* for any kind of business. I would never rely on them for anything.