On a public profile information about private family members is shown that is not shown on the concerning private profiles.
On a public profile information about private profiles should be limited to the information that is shown on the private profiles
see also: http://help.geni.com/entries/20422036-public-parents-of-private-profiles-are-viewable and http://help.geni.com/entries/20176596-timeline-for-public-profiles-reveals-private-data-from-other-profiles
Hi Job - Can you please link me to a specific example of a public profile where private profile information is revealed?
Natalie,
It was a long time go I posted this, I'm afraid I do not have an example for you at the moment.
I do not use the timeline much and I'm over the limit so I cannot create I profile to test it with.
If it is still a problem it should be visible if you find a public profile that has private children with dates specified.
In that case the timeline on the public profile shows (or did show) names and/or dates for the children.
Hi Job - I just checked a public profile with private children. The name information is visible, but the name is visible from the private profile page. The only bit of information about the private profile that is available on the timeline and not available from the profile page is the birth year (year only - no month or date).
Nathalie, thanks for checking.
I think even the year could be an issue for living persons for some of the profile managers
Just curious:.
Could you tell me why I cannot use the search screen in Geni to go to a public profile (I get a get a screen asking me to upgrade), when I can use Google or another external search to go to it without a problem?
The tree view will show a little information about private profiles, why cannot I use an external search engine to find that same limited information?
Why does one has to to get an account to be able to send a message about a public profile to someone? I notice that I hardly get any reactions a my data on Geni while I get a lot of useful information about the same data when it is outside of Geni and people can mail me more easily about it. You already have some measures against spam, so that should not be the main reason?
Hi Job - By default, we keep profiles private back to 3rd great grandparents, so if there are private profiles with living children, chances are very good that a Geni user has purposely chosen to make that profile public, even though there are living children. We can't stop users from making that decision - some users even choose to make their own profiles public. It's up to each individual user to choose a privacy level with which they feel comfortable.
Our internal Geni search feature is a premium feature that is only available to Geni Plus and Geni Pro users. External search engines like Google can only be used for some profiles, so it's of limited use for much of the site.
We respect our users who have chosen to make their profiles private - users have a setting in their account settings to prevent Google and other external search engines from indexing their profiles. If they have chosen that option, then their profiles are not available to third party search engines and may or may not be available for limited viewing by other Geni users, depending on the user's preferences in their account settings.
If we allowed anyone to contact profile managers without creating an account, we would have no recourse for preventing spam attacks on our profile managers. If we require an account, we can at least quickly flag an account as a spammer's account and disable it and delete it. Without that ability, our profile mangers would be inundated with spam requests, so requiring an account protects our users.
Natalie,
Thanks for the clarifications.
You state "External search engines like Google can only be used for some profiles, so it's of limited use for much of the site."
I must disagree with you on that point. Besides I think it is strange that have to use an external search engine to find some profiles that Geni will not show me when I'm a Basic user
It does not help me in deciding to change to plus or pro, When I knew there where a lot of real matches with my tree I might reconsider becoming a plus or pro user .
What I miss is a package I could buy that gave me some extended possibilities like adding a fixed number of profiles to the tree or making a fixed number of merges without having to pay every month.
Something like that would also be a nice gift package. It would also help if I could buy it using a local bank account (may be through a reseller)
I noticed that some profiles I added where made public by default even though they were of living persons (that was last year before the changes).
Those profiles where outside my extended family. I think it would be better if the default for profiles of living persons would be private.
It seems to me that concerning the children your argument is incorrect. As far as I understood your earlier comment its about showing information about private profiles on a public profile.
So if the parents are public (may be because they were made public because they have died or because they are just outside the extended family) and the children are private then the timeline of the parents may disclose the birth year of the private (may be living) children.
.
Hi Job - It sounds like you've got some great feature requests to post in our Feature Requests forum here: http://help.geni.com/forums/337266-feature-requests.
Building up your tree, up to your 3rd great grandparents will default to private. Building across your tree, out to your fourth cousins will default to private. Once you're outside that area, which we call your family group, the profiles will default to public. I believe that we've already got a feature request to default all living profiles to private, even if they are distant relations, and we are considering making that change.
We do have special protections in place for minors and take care to hide photos, birth dates, names, etc. unless a user has specifically chosen to make the profile public (these are often public figures such as child actors and the children of famous politicians, etc. who are in the public eye).
This discussion has gone well beyond a Bug Report, so I'm going to close it for further comment, and I encourage you to participate in our Feature Requests forum to let us know the changes you'd like to see in Geni. Thanks for your feedback and support.