Google Drive Public Link-share & Personal Information?

[リチャード]

Hey! So I'm in a Discord server and I wanted to share some cute videos of my sister's bunny with them. I don't have Discord Nitro so my file-size is limited to 8 MB, and the videos were ~50 MB á piece, so I figured I'd just upload them onto Google Drive and make some public links.

 

So some people freaked out, saying I basically just doxed myself and anyone who clicks the links. Personally, I know when they open the links they can see the email address of the person who owns it, and the name tied to that account. But that's basically it (I thought). These people were saying anyone who clicks those links are doxing their names, connected e-mails, billing addresses, etc. etc. just all kinds of personal information. Anyway, the server mods removed the links and said if I was alright with doxing myself that's one thing, but if it doxes anyone who clicks the links, that's not okay. Fair enough, I certainly don't want to accidentally trick anyone into sharing anything out of privacy concerns.

 

This post isn't about drama... I'm just honestly curious if it's true that a public G-Drive link gives everyone access to that much personal information? It seems very unlikely to me. I know personally I wasn't able to see whenever anyone else was on that link. There's also a difference between a shared file and a shared link, where a file/doc/etc. share does show everyone's e-mails or "anonymous animals" if not logged in. But I suppose it's possible that someone much more tech-savvy than I could have access to that stuff if they really wanted to.

[Slottr]

To my knowledge all they'll be able to see if the name of your google account.

So if I had an account with John Smith and JohnS@Gmail.com it would show "John Smith".

 

If you want to share videos you can use streamable.com to upload and get an embed-able link

[Pickles072]

If you share the link then you will be able to see who is viewing. That means name and email. I'm no hacker, but I see that as a potential victim in the wrong hands. The file sharing is where you add their email to a sharing list with videoing or edit access. I would say the file sharing would be better. If you have many videos then you could do a folder share. An alternative option would be uploading it to YouTube as a private/unlisted video and just share the link or add their emails or Users(I'm not sure which one).

[AbydosOne]

I just checked on files I've shared (open link in incognito), and it only shows my name (not email) under the info of the file. I can't say if that's always true.

[リチャード]

22 minutes ago, Pickles072 said:

If you share the link then you will be able to see who is viewing. That means name and email. I'm no hacker, but I see that as a potential victim in the wrong hands. The file sharing is where you add their email to a sharing list with videoing or edit access. I would say the file sharing would be better. If you have many videos then you could do a folder share. An alternative option would be uploading it to YouTube as a private/unlisted video and just share the link or add their emails or Users(I'm not sure which one).

I cannot see who is viewing the link, though.

 

You're likely thinking of a shared file like I mentioned, in which case I know you're able to see everyone's e-mail addresses (except in some cases where you can view them anonymously). EDIT: Editing rights = shared email required, viewing rights only = anonymous, I think.

17 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

I just checked on files I've shared (open link in incognito), and it only shows my name (not email) under the info of the file. I can't say if that's always true.

Right?! I even looked around everywhere in the elements/console thing (whatever that thing is called when you press F12) while logged into one Google account in incognito browser to see if I could somehow find it embedded in the text there somewhere. Nothing. There's no info shared about anyone else viewing a publicly shared link so far as I can see.

 

22 minutes ago, Slottr said:

To my knowledge all they'll be able to see if the name of your google account.

So if I had an account with John Smith and JohnS@Gmail.com it would show "John Smith".

 

If you want to share videos you can use streamable.com to upload and get an embed-able link

Thank you! I'll use streamable instead in that server

 

And yeah, that's the only thing I've been able to see as well, and that's my own dox which I don't really care about because the e-mail isn't even associated with my real name.

[LogicalDrm]

Billing address, connected phone numbers and backup emails are still private. Essentially you only compromise the email, allowing more spam to it. This is the reason why its generally not wise to share your main email publicly (I have several backup emails to use for that for example).

 

How Google treats your personal details, like billing address, payment details, connected phone numbers etc. is said in their Privacy Policy. Ofc there are loopholes left on purpose so that they can do market research and share data in some countries (= illegal in EU).