On 6 Jun 2009, at 03:26, Matt Lee wrote: > I would actually be in favour of dumping gravatar, but then again, you > have to sign up to Gravatar. If you don't want them to know this about > you, you wouldn't sign up, right?
Sites using gravatar leak information whether their users sign up with gravatar or not. The problem is that, whether you've uploaded an image or not, the referring site includes an <img> element with your e-mail address embedded into the URL. Now, this is MD5 hashed of course, so it can't be used to spam you, but it *can* be used to confirm identity, and to consolidate identity across a wide range of sites. In general, for most users, identity consolidation is a Good Thing that should make managing our identities across the growing collection of social sites easier. However, it should be something that users opt into. For people with gravatar concerns, the profile editing form allows you to enter the URL of a custom avatar. If a custom avatar has been entered, then a gravatar will not be displayed for your profile. This custom avatar of course doesn't *need* to be a picture of you. A suitable image for paranoid people might be http://alpha.libre.fm/i/ qm50.png (typed this image URL from memory as I'm currently on a train with no wifi - hope it's the one I'm thinking of). -- Toby A Inkster <mailto:[email protected]> <http://tobyinkster.co.uk> _______________________________________________ Libre-fm mailing list [email protected] http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/libre-fm
