The sharing function can easily be abused by bad guys, even if it is part of a non-traditional social network service. Google Drive is increasing the ability for users to prevent other accounts from sharing files with them, a move designed to prevent potential harassment and spam on the platform.
This feature will be gradually rolled out to everyone in the next two weeks, which will prevent accounts from accessing any files shared in the past and maliciously, and delete any files shared by them in the past from online drives.
Google said in an announcement about this change: Drive’s sharing feature promotes productivity and collaboration, but bad actors may abuse tools designed to promote beneficial sharing. That’s why we want to create a way to deter other users. Blocking accounts in Drive will also prevent them from interacting with you on other Google services, such as Hangouts and Chat.
The search giant announced this new feature in May. Earlier, a report on Buzzfeed News Network highlighted an example: a user could not delete from his hard drive a shared folder from an ex-partner who shared sexually abused content. Because the folder contains harmless photos, Drive’s existing “report as abuse” feature fails to respond appropriately, and the service is designed to make it difficult to delete these files permanently.
According to the recent update of Google’s support page, if you right-click on a file shared by a user in Drive, an option to block the user will appear. If you change your mind, there is also an option to unblock users in the future.
