A while back, I decided to burn my feed to give readers more ways to subscribe (email being the big one) and let me track those subscriptions more easily for giveaways. FeedBurner was the obvious solution, and I’d already used it with other blogs. I don’t personally subscribe to any feeds via email and few feeds at all. I check on Google Reader or my phone’s RSS app, but I prefer to stay up-to-date with blogs that I read by actually visiting them. I’m old school like so.
So when I burned the feed for of Sex and Love to my normal FeedBurner account, I thought nothing of it. I didn’t realize that you could actually see a link to my Google+ profile and that FeedBurner used my email address as the sender’s. One of my readers notified me. We joked a bit, and then I quickly set out to rectify the situation. Feedburner includes a handy option to permanently transfer ownership, so I did. I thought all was well and good.
I was wrong. I signed in to my normal Gmail, which I rarely use, to see a kind message from someone who enjoyed my reviews and followed them via FeedBurner. I knew something was wrong, but the actual copy of the blog post to which she was replying didn’t show my photo or email address at all. It took some Google-fu to figure out that, despite having switched ownership, to sender email had remained the same for my feed.
I headed back to FeedBurner once more, but couldn’t find the location to change this for the life of me. I was feeling frustrated, because FeedBurner’s navigation and layout is overly complex. There was also no location where I could preview exactly how email updates would look to my readers. I eventually found the solution (Publicize > Email > Communication Prefs) and changed my sender’s email. Now, all my email subscribers will see messages from Adriana @ of Sex and Love, like it should’ve been when I permanently switched ownership. That seems like something Google should do for you.
Regardless, I never expected this to be a problem. Judging from the reactions of my Twitter friends, neither did they. At least one person changed her information after talking with me. Google has really been the bane of my existence when it comes to (trying to) blog anonymously. I don’t have much to lose, but others do.
The moral of the story is, ultimately, to avoid mixing any accounts or emails between your identities even if you think that there’s no way it could be a problem. Setup PayPal with additional email addresses. Use an address specifically for your sex blog/reviewing identity. Create separate instant messaging accounts. Sign up for Disqus twice. Anonymity, like freedom, requires you to plan for it.
And now I’m off to check mine to make sure it’s not doing the same to me. You’d think Feedburner would be more privacy aware. I had trouble with mine not even sending emails or allowing people to subscribe for months. There’s really no support in place when you have problems with it, which is ridiculous.
I noticed that about FeedBurner, too– the lack of support.
Yep, this is a really good example of the importance of having separate email accounts and using them for everything. Crossover is baaad.
It really needn’t have been so complicated, though. I mean, c’mon Google.
This is pretty crappy. I didn’t think that Feedburner was something to be careful with. I’m learning not to take discretion for granted!