[INDOLOGY] Academia.edu and privacy issues

[Dominik Wujastyk]

This is worrying.  I've been getting Academia.edu "push" suggestions too,
but I haven't connected them with my emails.

Gmail emails are encrypted by default, end-to-end.  TLS encryption (as long
as the recipient has TLS too).  So Academia.edu can't see them.

Google searches are public (see the fascinating Seth
Stephens-Davidowitz, *Everybody
Lies*), but not *who* did the searching afaik.

It's hard to know how this is happening, but it is a bit creepy.  I'll ask
the Academia.edu people.

Best,
Dominik

On Tue, 24 Nov 2020 at 16:06, Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear list members,
> I'm sharing this with the list since so many members also use
> Academia.edu.
>
> A while back I had an email exchange with a list member and the same day I
> received an email from Academia.edu highlighting a paper by the list member
> I'd just been emailing.  Today I received an email from a colleague not a
> member of Academia.edu. That email discussed a particular hymn and had the
> hymns name in the email title.  Within 15 minutes of receiving that email,
> I received an email from Academia.edu highlighting an article about the
> hymn I'd just been emailed about.
>
> I use Gmail.  I think this means that if you are a Academia.edu member and
> also a gmail user, then  Academia.edu knows who and when you email someone
> or someone emails you, the title of the email and possibly the contents of
> the email.
>
> As far as I can see looking at the Gmail privacy, Gmail doesn't say they
> don't share email contents and I think  to join Academia.edu you have to
> give them access to your contents list.
>
> I've removed Academia.edu from access to my contacts list and hopefully
> this will solve the problem.
>
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20201124/38b59ebe/attachment.htm>