Home : Networking : News

Google+ spams users after disk space shortage

Users receive a gushing apology after Google spams them after disk space shortage.

By Tom Brewster, 11 Jul 2011 at 10:29

Google has apologised to users of its new social networking service after inadvertently spamming them with notification messages.

The company said a glitch occurred after the Google+ service that keeps tabs on notifications ran out of disk space.

“For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again. Yikes,” said Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of social for Google, in a blog post.

“We didn't expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have.”

Google was “very sorry for the spam,” Gundotra added.

Google’s so-called Facebook rival has been hit by a few minor snags since it was unveiled towards the end of June.

The most significant problem has not been of Google’s making, but of spammers.

A plethora of phony Google+ invitations were sent out earlier this month, pointing recipients to the Canadian Family Pharmacy rather than the hyped Facebook rival.

Google has also been busy deleting company profiles from the service, but only in preparation for a bespoke business service, expected to launch before the end of the year.

Facebook, meanwhile, has been trying to cement its dominance in the social networking space, adding Skype functionality last week.

Email to a friend

Print this page

< Previous Networking : News Next >

1 comments

You need to Login or Register to comment.

Google+ Spams Users

I would beg to differ with the terminology which Mr. Brewster has used in his article. To use the term "spam" in describing multiple notifications sent out to users is, I think, doing a disservice toward Google+ and tends to contribute a negative bias toward the proposed new service. The term "spam" is widely accepted as unsolicited email intentionally sent to a wide range of users in the hope of personal or corporate gain (a much shorter definition than that which otherwise could be provided). I would not classify multiple emails sent out through technical error to recipients who, through their enrollment in the Google+ service, have indicated that they will receive email from Google. While I do not propose to evaluate the Google+ service based on a comparison with Facebook, I would have thought that a somewhat different choice of words could have told the story without painting Google with the same paintbrush as other true spammers attempting to hawk their product or otherwise get their hands into our pocketbooks.

By jerryguinn on Tuesday Jul 12