It looks like the specialty shopping website Etsy really stepped in the hand-crafted, organically-sourced dog doo. The popular site recently changed its privacy settings without adequately informing users they could opt out, and now their real names, reviews, favorites, and shopping histories are available to their Facebook friends. What this means is that if you're shopping for a gift for your Aunt Sylvia, and you use Etsy's new Facebook-linked "personalized suggestion" feature, you may find out a little too much information about Sylvia's kinky purchases. And some people are finding that if you search a name on Google, that person's Etsy profile comes right up!

Ars Technica reports that users on the Penny Arcade forums are making some interesting discoveries. "Found an XXL glass dildo with veins and swirled gold coloring (beautiful piece really) and checked to see if anyone favorited it," wrote one user. "Someone did. She also favorited some cosplay cat eat hats [sic] and a bell collar/necklace thing. Then I found her on Facebook." Another commenter writes, "I just found a woman who's Etsy profile comes up on Google as the 5th link. I was expecting 6 or 7 pages down, but it's on the very first page, right after her online resumes. She signed up a year ago, under the old privacy policy, and hasn't logged in since 2010. And now I know what dildo she uses. Right down to the curvature and coloring." Hired!

The purchase histories are exposed through the feedback buyers leave for others, or via the feedback sellers leave for them; this info had always been public on Etsy, but buyers were not previously searchable on Etsy. Etsy CEO Rob Kalin, who is addressing the angry mob on the Ars Tecnica comment board, insists Etsy did e-mail all users, but as you can see from some of the responses, not everyone got the memo. One commenter writes, "no you fucking did NOT. i have 4 usernames on etsy. i should have gotten 4 emails. i have not gotten even 1." And another commenter points out that the e-mail Etsy did send out was incomplete:

And one thing should be clarified (the article might need updating): Etsy DID notify users in late January that it would be changing its privacy policy in the future. But in their email they explicitly said that this was to accommodate the ability for other users to find them by email address. NOWHERE does it state that other users will be able to find them via their name, if they registered with it. If this is Etsy's attempt to sneak one under the radar ("Technically we told you the privacy policy would be changing!"), it's another sign that this ludicrous company is completely beyond the pale.

This is the EXACT contents of the message I received on January 29th:

"Hello!

We recently launched a new feature, Circles, that lets you connect with other people on Etsy. When you add someone to your Etsy circle, you can follow along with their favorites in your activity feed. It's illuminating!

Right now it's hard to find people you know on Etsy, and that's sad. Well, we're changing that. We're making it easy to connect your email address book to Etsy, so we can find people you know who are also members.

(If you don't want people you know to be able to find you, you will be able easily to opt out through your account privacy settings.)

We're letting you know about this in advance, and will be launching this feature in mid-February.

We have also revised our Privacy Policy in anticipation of this feature. You can review our Privacy Policy here: http://www.etsy.com/policy/privacy

If you have any questions or comments, please visit http://www.etsy.com/contact to get in touch.

You're receiving this email because you registered on Etsy.com with this email address.

Thanks!
The Etsy Team"

Looks like somebody needs to get cracking on some lovingly hand-crafted apology needlepoints! [Ars Technica via Daily Intel]