Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good idea

Re:Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good... by warp on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @04:17AM (#998409)

It also allows you to match an e-mail address to a particular account. So, let's say a dating site uses gravatars, now anyone who can see those can match my dating profile to my stackoverflow account (and any other site using gravatars).

I know this ofcourse, and will use a different e-mail address if I need to keep these identities seperate, but many people do not realize any gravatar enabled user profile can be linked to any other gravatar enabled user profile with only a tiny bit of effort in harvesting.

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Re:Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good... by ryanelkins on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @10:52AM (#998987)

Uh, can't they also link those accounts by noticing that they are the exact same picture? I mean, I thought that was partially the point.

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Re:Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good... by warp on Thursday December 17, 2009 @04:33AM (#1000723)

The problem is they can match these profiles even if you haven't signed up for gravatar at all. Your email hash is always sent to gravatar.com.

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