Why Gravatar?

  • Unknown's avatar
    jackson320 · Member ·

    I attempted to upload a profile picture and I was met with the following message:

    Howdy! Would you like to log in to Gravatar using your WordPress.com account?

    This will allow Gravatar to:

    View user information data such as username, name, email, blog, and Gravatar.

    Why do we have to give up our all of our user information data just to upload a profile picture? Is there any other reason besides that Word Press has found a way to mine our data? And why do they need to mine our data? Are they selling it? What do they need it for? Why is Word Press doing this? I cannot accept this product given these privacy intrusions. I would like to keep using Word Press. Is there any way to upload a profile picture without using Gravatar?

  • Unknown's avatar
    jackson320 · Member ·

    I also found this:

    I’m a lawyer specialising in internet and privacy issues at a Fortune 100 company and I personally think that Gravatar is easily the worst service available in terms of your data security and privacy. I generally don’t comment on any blogs that are Gravatar-enabled (this being an exception), for the following reasons:

    The entire reason Gravatar offers their service is to collect internet usage data across multiple sites. It is not offered free out of the goodness of their heart. The entire purpose of the service is to analyse the way YOU navigate the internet.
    Gravatar has clear plans to monetise this data. Whether they are successful or not is another story.
    It is unlikely that Gravatar would ever disclose individual user’s personal information, but it is not impossible. The Chinese government has often requested to these kind of information aggregators to disclose data for the prosecution of political dissidents – and very often these requests are met resulting in bloggers being jailed (see Yahoo!’s experiences in China). For example, if I leave a number of comments promoting democracy criticising the PRC government on various blogs, it is entirely possible that the Chinese government could use legal authority to request the holder of information to disclose that to them. By retaining this information and preventing you from stoppping it’s collection, Gravatar is putting both bloggers and commenters at risk. This is not just in China. The Patriot Act and many other new pieces of post-9/11 legislation in Western countries convey similar powers to government.
    The most egregious part of Gravatar’s service is the inability to stop them from collecting your data. I have in the past tried to cancel a Gravatar registration. Gravatar does not allow this and will continue to track your e-mail address for the rest of time.
    Gravatar does not provide any details about how they use your personal information and does not respond to any queries relating to privacy issues.
    I do not believe Gravatar is an opt-in service. Obviously they will not display an avator unless you register, but if a blog is Gravatar-enabled, every time you comment on it, your e-mail address is sent to Gravatar. Even if they do not retain this address (and it is quite possible that they do – their Privacy Policy is silent on this point and they have not responded to any of my enquiries on this point), it is VERY likely that your internet usage is still tracked in an anonymous fashion. That is, if I use the same e-mail address to comment on 5 different blogs, even if I am not a registered Gravatar user the fact that a user has accessed those 5 blogs is very likely retained by Gravatar.
    Much is made of facebook and Google Chrome’s use of personal information, but Gravatar is far and away the worst popular internet service I have encountered in terms of user (and non-user) personal information.

    As a lawyer, I strongly urge all blog authors and users who are concerned about their privacy to avoid Gravatar.

    https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/44717/is-gravatar-a-privacy-risk

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    A gravatar account and a wordpress.com account are one in the same thing as Automattic Inc. owns both.

    See Upload an Avatar https://en.support.wordpress.com/gravatars/#upload-an-avatar

    You can change your gravatar at any time by clicking on the existing one on this page https://wordpress.com/me

    You can use one gravatar image for each username account. It will apply to all sites referred under the same username account. And, the Gravatar help link is http://en.gravatar.com/support/

    Gravatar/blavatar (favicon) images do not show up instantly after uploading them. Gravatar images are cached and frequently take several days to display after a change. The accepted file types are:
    .jpg/.jpeg
    .gif
    .png

    Do not forget to select an image rating.
    Know that other bloggers can choose not to display any “erotic” gravatar’s on their site.

    See: http://en.support.wordpress.com/avatars/blavatars/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/avatars/gravatars/

    To enable Gravatar display and hovercard display on your blog go to Dashboard > Settings > Discussion

    http://reducktor.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-discussion.php

    and scroll way down the page to “Avatars”. http://en.support.wordpress.com/gravatar-hovercards/

    If you do not succeed then type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff follow-up. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Also subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Please also see: http://en.gravatar.com/support/
    Why Does Gravatar Say I Already Have an Account?
    http://en.gravatar.com/support/existing-account/

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