What I don't get in your argument is how am I supposed to know that this list of friends are celebrities?

This is why you're missing the point. It doesn't matter if people are celebrities. They were examples.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

The fact is that you are giving away more of your and other people's privacy on your website than is available on Xbox Live.

Bull. I'm not giving away other people's privacy.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

I could fairly easily get public records access to your home address.

Or you could do a whois lookup. The point remains that that's MY information, not the information of others.

The base truth is that it's dumb that MY privacy is placed in the hands of others. And you can't even say "Well, they're your friends" because Microsoft today told me that even pending friend requests will be listed. So, theoretically, someone could create a list of celebrities, file friend requests, set this option to "Everyone," and gamers worldwide could figure out celebrity gamertags. Even if the Microsoft person misspoke about pending requests, it's still a hole - my privacy is diminished because of the choices of others.

What I don't get in your argument is how am I supposed to know that this list of friends are celebrities? Did the person that created the friend list name their gamertag Celebrity Gamertags? Are the celebrities' gamertags their own real names? How would I know that it really is them. Anyone with an e-mail address can pick any unused string as their gamertag as long as it doesn't go against the MS terms of service. Also, the pending friend in the list should disappear when the person declines the friend request.

Do you actually think most people on Xbox Live even care who you or your friends are? I doubt it. The fact is that you are giving away more of your and other people's privacy on your website than is available on Xbox Live. I know your full name, the town you live in, your e-mail address, your wife's name including her maiden name. I'm sure I can get much more information just from that. I could fairly easily get public records access to your home address. That seems much more worthy of privacy than a list of arbitrary user names on a gaming service.

Also, the only reason I would ever know your gamertag is because you gave it to me on this site. Otherwise, I would never know that erikjb is Erick J. Barzeski of Erie, PA. I obviously won't be able to convince you that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill so I won't continue after this post.

Erik J. Barzeski said on November 28, 2007:

No, you're swimming up the river here. I will probably never enable that setting because if my meat-space friend "Bob" has an Xbox 360, sees my gamertag here on my blog, and wants to make me his buddy and send me a message, I want to allow that. If Steve Jobs (to continue the example) wants to allow Apple employees to add him, via a gamertag he shares amongst trusted Apple employees, to their friend list or message him regarding the weekly After-Hours Apple Campus Worms Championship, he should be allowed.

Just a note here. I think people can still send you a friend request even if you have other messages disabled. I could be wrong, but I think this only blocks generic messages and not friend requests.

The problem with your argument is that no one will know that BillGatesBlows is Steve Jobs so they most likely won't be sending him friend requests or messages about the iPhone.

That completely misses the point (and you know it). What if Steven Frank of Panic (a "celebrity" to many) is on my buddy list with the username "stevenf"? Or a family member, as others pointed out above.

The base truth is that it's dumb that MY privacy is placed in the hands of others. And you can't even say "Well, they're your friends" because Microsoft today told me that even pending friend requests will be listed. So, theoretically, someone could create a list of celebrities, file friend requests, set this option to "Everyone," and gamers worldwide could figure out celebrity gamertags. Even if the Microsoft person misspoke about pending requests, it's still a hole - my privacy is diminished because of the choices of others.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

If BillGatesBlows doesn't want to get random text and voice messages from people he doesn't know, then he can go into his settings and disable it or set to friends only.

No, you're swimming up the river here. I will probably never enable that setting because if my meat-space friend "Bob" has an Xbox 360, sees my gamertag here on my blog, and wants to make me his buddy and send me a message, I want to allow that. If Steve Jobs (to continue the example) wants to allow Apple employees to add him, via a gamertag he shares amongst trusted Apple employees, to their friend list or message him regarding the weekly After-Hours Apple Campus Worms Championship, he should be allowed.

You've got people jumping through all sorts of hoops when the solution - make the default option "Blocked" - is so, so, so much easier. Or, rather than sharing your buddy list, make all buddy lists available to "Everyone" but allow me to control whether my name appears on a viewed buddy list or not. I like the second option, personally, but the first would work in the existing system. Obviously in the second I'd favor setting it to "Blocked" by default.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

This is similar to how all the social networking sites like MySpace work.

Perhaps that's one of the many reasons I don't use the social networks. You know, besides them being pointless and a waste of time.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

This new feature just extends it.

Look, I'm just saying two things:

1. I think it goes too far and I think it's sleazy of Microsoft to default to "Everyone."
2. I am promising "my" friends that I will never set mine to "Everyone" and I encourage everyone else to do so.

Rich said on November 28, 2007:

If you don't want to participate in that, the settings are there for you to disable it.

Except that I can't truly opt out! I can:

1. crawl into a cave by disabling all uninitiated contact, which is bad because I may miss out on meat-world friends contacting me via Xbox Live.
2. Trust that the exposure I get from friends who don't change the default setting from "Everyone" isn't a bad thing overall.

And by "me" of course I mean everyone.

That's my problem: the settings of one person affect the privacy of another person. Though it may be my friends list, the friends listed on it are people too. It's not like I'm just publishing a list of songs like the Celebrity Song Lists on the iTunes Store.

The problem with your argument is that no one will know that BillGatesBlows is Steve Jobs so they most likely won't be sending him friend requests or messages about the iPhone. The only thing someone else will know is that some person with a gamertag erikjb has a friend with a gamertag BillGatesBlows. Yes, they can send him messages and friend requests, but I don't see that as a privacy concern. It's more of a nuisance if anything.

If BillGatesBlows doesn't want to get random text and voice messages from people he doesn't know, then he can go into his settings and disable it or set to friends only. Then even though you may still allow everyone to see your friends, the only thing others can do is send him a friend request.

This is similar to how all the social networking sites like MySpace work. People can see your profile and the profiles of your friends unless you and your friends specifically set your profiles to private. Xbox Live has always been a social network for finding people to play games with. This new feature just extends it. The defaults for adults are set to everyone because Microsoft wants people network as much as possible. If you don't want to participate in that, the settings are there for you to disable it.

FYI, Xbox live sent a message to my console last night telling me about the change and telling me how to make my friends private, so they're not trying to hide it.

Nice to know Travis. I haven't turned on my console in a couple of days. But Erik is totally right. Your privacy is in somebody else's hands. That is so not right.

Your definition of privacy is a little strict since the only thing people can get from this feature is your gamertag and your friends' gamertags.

No doubt I am, but it's not "my" gamertag I'm worried about. Heck, I publish my gamertag right there in the sidebar - erikjb.

But what this privacy setting does is let someone else control my privacy. Granted, they're my "friends," but imagine I have Steve Jobs on my Xbox buddy list (I don't). Suddenly my settings affect HIS privacy. Perhaps he doesn't want people to know his gamertag is "BillGatesBlows" lest he be inundated with friend requests, messages about the iPhone, etc.

That's my problem: the settings of one person affect the privacy of another person. Though it may be my friends list, the friends listed on it are people too. It's not like I'm just publishing a list of songs like the Celebrity Song Lists on the iTunes Store.

And the default setting is "Everyone" - i.e. "Privacy? What's that?"

Rich said on November 27, 2007:

The only thing they can do with this is join games you are playing online, send you a message, or request to be your friend.

Not true. This affects my friends, not me.

Rich said on November 27, 2007:

If you think friend of a friend is bad, then you should also be aware that by default anyone can see what your current Xbox Live status is (online or offline) as well as what you are doing (what game you are playing or if you are watching a movie, listening to music, etc.).

But that's all within my power and only shares my information, not the information of others.

Aaron said on November 27, 2007:

@ Erik: Changes made to your Live account through the website can take up to 4 hours to stick. If you make it on your console, it's immediate. At least that's been my experience.

True, but even today my setting hasn't remained "stuck." It still displays "Everyone" when I load it up and there seems to be no place in the current Xbox dashboard to try to set this setting.

Travis said on November 27, 2007:

FYI, Xbox live sent a message to my console last night telling me about the change and telling me how to make my friends private, so they're not trying to hide it.

Two things about that: 1) It probably didn't "stick." Go back and it will say "Everyone" again. I've just checked mine again today and it still says "Everyone." 2) Telling people about something 10 days ahead of time and not letting the settings they choose stick is almost as bad as not telling them at all. I set an iCal alarm to try making my settings stick every day until it finally does - but how many other people are going to remember to keep trying until it works?