UPDATE – MacWorld is reporting that Google has fixed their error. The examples I tried today are indeed invalid now. Pretty fast action on Googles part. And as much as I like Google it befuddles me as to how this type of error could have gone unnoticed.
http://www.macworld.com/article/143383/2009/10/googlevoice.html?lsrc=rss_main#via-feedly
I saw a disturbing twitter from @graywolf this morning. Michael Gray (www.wolf-howl.com) let loose with the discovery that the Voicemails in Google Voice are indexed. That is to say, you can find peoples voicemails and listen to them.
This isn’t pretty. I know of at least 100+ Affiliate Marketers that are using Google Voice as their primary public business phone number.
Don’t believe me? Well, I’m not going to teach you how to eavesdrop on others. But here’s a screenshot of a Google search that shows Voicemails. I’ve wiped out segments that give away how to do the search. You wouldn’t want me to give away how to listen in on your voicemails now, would you?
So, what to do? If you have a Google Voice account go delete all the voicemails you don’t need anymore. If they’re gone, noone can listen to them. And keep up with the news on Google Voice. Check your account online a couple times a day and take care of any voicemails you receive. And when leaving a voicemail yourself, don’t put any information in it that you wouldn’t want the world to know about.
This is bad for Google. If they don’t handle this fast they could risk all the good news about the Droid phone (which uses Google Android) that is getting ready to go more than viral. Let alone having people listen to a voicemail from your doctor telling you that test was positive (yes, I went there).
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