Leaving a voice mail for a Google Voice user? Be careful what you say… it might wind up all over the Interwebs.
According to Boy Genius Report, GV’s service seems to have a few cracks in the gates, with some users’ voice mails ending up in online search results. According to the tipster, inputting “site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/*” into Google yields 31 linked results to random voice mail messages from different accounts. Each one displays the transcript of the call, plus audio, so the names, numbers and messages are as clear as if it were your own vm box.
Google says this isn’t a security flaw. Basically, the company doesn’t restrict users’ ability to share voice mails with others, so those who post their own messages online will naturally see their messages crawled and indexed by the search engine. But it also acknowledged that, even though some are making them public on their own sites, they may not want to see Google pull them into broader results. A change has been made now so site owners can allow or block that.
But be warned: If you have a penchant for drunk dialing or other embarrassing phone message behavior, you may want to think twice before talking after the beep.
[via Boy Genius Report]