Google Plus Invite Results In Man's Arrest For Violating A Restraining Order

from the requesting-permission-to-post-on-your-behalf,-jailbird dept

Fri, Jan 10th 2014 1:34pm — Tim Cushing

To many people, Google's social media platform, Google+, remains a conundrum. Is it a Facebook competitor? Is it Google's efficient way of consolidating its ~~power~~ disparate services into a cohesive whole? Is it an ASCII penis generator?

One thing it might be is a brand new way to get in trouble. Matthew A. Sawtell sends in this story of one man whose dip into Google's social media pool resulted in his arrest.

Prosecutors say Thomas Gagnon violated a restraining order by sending his former girlfriend an invitation to join his Google Plus circle.

But Gagnon’s attorney says his client has no idea how the woman he once planned to marry — popping the question with a $4,000 ring earlier this month — got such an invitation, suggesting that it might have been sent by a robot.

Gagnon's attorney may not be far off. If Gagnon's estranged ex used other Google services like Gmail to communicate with Gagnon back in happier days, there's a good chance she was inserted into a list of potential Google+ "friends*" in order to easily insert them into Circles.

Then again, how Google generates its suggested contacts is considered a black art by much of the population, although the prevailing notion is that if Google owns it and you use it, you're on the list. The judge presiding over Gagnon's somewhat unexpected appearance in court had this bit of insight on the social media platform.

A Salem District Court judge yesterday admitted he wasn’t sure exactly how such invitations work on Google’s social media site…

That didn't stop him from setting Gagnon's bail at $500 and ordering him to stay away from his ex-girlfriend.

Gagnon's attorney continued to maintain that Google+ auto-violated the restraining order. The judge countered by expressing his doubt of Gagnon's ability to follow court orders, suggesting something went a bit off the rails during the original hearing.

Whether or not Google+ attempted to widen Gagnon's social circle by including a woman who had taken out a restraining order against him is still unclear. What's perfectly clear, however, is that the situation behind Gagnon's current legal problems escalated very quickly.

On Friday, Gagnon gave his momentary fiancée a $4,000 engagement ring. The next day (Saturday) she broke up with him. By Monday, she had taken out a restraining order. By Thursday, Gagnon was back facing the judge after his allegedly inadvertently "mailing out" a Google+ invitation to his ex. (This itself was the result of some speedy escalation. Gagnon's ex took a printout of the invitation to the police who had him in custody less than ninety minutes later.)

What could have provoked this expeditious onslaught of small, personal calamities? Details are sparse, but the article signs off with these lines.

It’s not clear from court papers whether the ring has been returned to Gagnon.

A status hearing in the case is set for Feb. 6.

If Gagnon wants to stay on the good side of the law, he should probably just unplug from the internet. Plenty of social media services mine contact lists and are more than happy to mass mail out invitations with a single click of the "accept" button.

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Filed Under: automatic invites, google plus, restraining order

39 Comments

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silverscarcat (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 12:58pm

Yet another reason...
To avoid using crap like Facebook and G+ for the rest of my life.
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BentFranklin (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:32pm

I hear she's engaged to Sergey now.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:44pm

Yet another reason...
To avoid getting married
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Christopher Best (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:46pm

Re: Yet another reason...
Exactly how many restraining orders do you have? ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:51pm

I've long had a serious distrust of Google, Facebook, and Myspace to name a few. However unlike our troll, I rare say much about it. There is this thing that if you don't like them you don't have to use their services.

Free with this group comes with a hidden price I'm not willing to pay. Maybe some others are finding the price a bit steep as well.
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blaktron (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:55pm

I always thought when someone has a restraining order against you, it details that you cannot be within X feet physically, or directly contact the person. You can, however, use a 3rd party to contact that person (such as a lawyer, accountant etc) otherwise a restraining order would be a license to steal from someone. It seems to me that Google is a 3rd party, and as long as the Circles invite were a standard form (ie, he did not customize the invitation) it should be open and shut.
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mischab1, 10 Jan 2014 @ 1:58pm

Messed up
Something is messed up. You don't get an invite asking if you want to be added to someone else's circle. They can add you if they want. You only get a choice on if you want to add them to one of your circles. Google does send you notices about what people in your contact list are doing on Google+ though.
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Anonymous, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:00pm

You don't need no stinkin' freedom of speech or press...a restraining order is more powerful than your trivial rights, boy! This is Amerikkka!
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:01pm

Re: Messed up
...or frame-up?
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Glen, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:09pm

Just maybe he had a circle called "Crazy psychopathic Bitches" and added her to it. She'd get an email but it doesn't oblige her to add him back.
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silverscarcat (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:10pm

Re: Re: Yet another reason...
ALL OF THEM!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:11pm

It happens
I can personally confirm that Google has sent false notices to me and a friend that each other had added each other to circles.

Neither I nor my friend added the other, yet we both received notice of having done so.

Hardly surprising, really, given G+ has been one big failure after another. The judge's failure to recognize the possibility is not at all surprising either.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:12pm

Re: Messed up
i have been sent invitations to connect with people from long ago...

google has your phone # (and your distant friend)...

and, google has your address book/contact list of many years. they might simply connect the dots and see who's missing from the circle.
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out_of_the_blue, 10 Jan 2014 @ 2:13pm

And The Google spies on you all the while too!
Google's tailoring to YOU can selectively substitute, omit, and lie. You can't trust anything on the net, neither what you see nor what you don't see!

10:13:19[l-170-1]
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New Mexico Mark, 10 Jan 2014 @ 3:28pm

My verdict? After about five seconds of "deliberation"?
To her: Put your big girl panties on, pay the court costs and his legal costs for wasting everyone's time today, and don't accept the invitation whether deliberate or not.

To him: Take a break from social media for a while. Maybe once this is all settled you can find another gold dig...er... marriage prospect to help relieve that uncomfortable bulge in your pants. (No, no, no, not THAT one! I mean your wallet!)
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 3:54pm

"Whether or not Google+ attempted to widen Gagnon's social circle by including a woman who had taken out a restraining order against him is still unclear."

It should therefore be clarified in a court of law, but like every other branch of the government, Google believes it is above the law, unwilling to clarify anything at all for any reason whatsoever.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 4:07pm

Re:
"There is this thing that if you don't like them you don't have to use their services."

Quite another matter when you are using someone else's service (original YouTube for example), which is then "purchased" by Google, who then, after completely obliterating it's usability, subsequently pulls the rug out from under one's feet (whilst sliding a new one beneath) in furtherance of deceiving both advertisers and investors saying: "Look at how many Google+ users we have!"
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 4:43pm

"Gagnon's ex took a printout of the invitation to the police who had him in custody less than ninety minutes later."

I wish they responded like that the last time I was assaulted.. It only took them 4 1/2 hours to show up at my house.

I guess I should have said I was assaulted on the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 4:52pm

Wait you can get in trouble for a google+ invite. Its dumb that somehow he ended up inviting someone who has a restraining order against him but this is just silly.
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alan turing, 10 Jan 2014 @ 7:44pm

Re: Re: Messed up
they ain't got my phone number
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2014 @ 9:37pm

Re: Re: Re: Yet another reason...
Aham!

ATTENTION VERY VERY IMPORTANT!:
I'm going to pull his leg and mess with him, this is in no way or form a statement of fact, only a hillbilly joke.

Did you get the one for the children too.
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Lurker Keith, 10 Jan 2014 @ 10:07pm

I hate those auto-invites
I hate getting auto-invites for services I refuse to use that my friends join.
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Tom The Toe, 11 Jan 2014 @ 5:56am

Let the Witch trials begin
"A Salem District Court judge yesterday admitted he wasn�t sure exactly how such invitations work on Google�s social media site." The judge has now concluded since he can't put his finger on something he can't understand it must be witchcraft.
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Steven Long, 11 Jan 2014 @ 6:30am

Response to: blaktron on Jan 10th, 2014 @ 1:55pm
You're not really allowed to communicate with them through third parties. Can't initiate, can respond through third parties.

And I don't get your license to steal comment at all
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 6:55am

This is a symptom of Google trying to move everything to google+ whether google users want to or not.

Even though these are highly farfetched circumstances, it still illustrates that people being coerced or force to join against their will is a bad thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 6:58am

Re:
Also unplugging from the internet wouldn't have helped him, Google has been doing this with other services as well. Some people who 'liked' a youtube video I made in 2008 now have most of their personal information available to me because they were suckered into putting their real info on their google+ account. I imagine real scammers and phishers are having a field day right now.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 7:01am

Re:
This is different, it used to be that if you didn't like their service, then don't use it.

Then suddenly, google started eating those services, and now it's trying to unify them. I didn't opt into Google+, I didn't opt into gmail, or google docs. But I certainly own an account with all those things now.

Why? Because at one time, long ago, I made a youtube account. Now that information is available to google. Is that fair? Is that worth be forfeiting my rights because one giant entity ate another and now owns all of my stuff?
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 7:04am

Re: Messed up
You do depending on how much info they have on you. It's likely this man just gave Google a little too much info and Google went berserk with it.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 7:07am

Re:
That's a murky water, he never contacted her at all, a robot did it.

I'm sure this will become apparent in the court hearing, or not, because it seems the judge wants to avoid all technology and keep his head stuck in the ground, Maybe him and the judge that was caught texting the prosecution can get together sometime.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 2:09pm

i'm i happy i dropped gmail a while back?

uh . . . yes.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 2:11pm

It may be mean, but the woman sounds like a fucking whackjob.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2014 @ 3:19pm

Re: My verdict? After about five seconds of "deliberation"?
"Put your big girl panties on"

Who talks like this - seriously this is Fox News territory
gmafb
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That One Guy (profile), 12 Jan 2014 @ 4:46am

Re:
Given she broke up with him the day after he gave her a four-thousand dollar engagement ring, and then filed for a restraining order the day after that, 'whackjob' would probably not be the first word that would come to mind, though it would certainly be more generous than other words and descriptions I could think of.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2014 @ 10:21am

What kind of an idiot buys a 4k engagement ring?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2014 @ 2:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Messed up
)they ain't got my phone number

Wanna bet. If you have a phone with a number and you gave gave your number to someone with an android phone they got it.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2014 @ 10:05pm

Re: Re:
oh wait, according to TD Google is optional !!! are you now trying to tell me it is not!..

Oh TD, we so much want to trust you, but trust is earned.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2014 @ 6:25am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Messed up
Don't forget about how they're insisting that everyone gives them their cell phone number now to initiate password resets.
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Jan 2014 @ 9:00am

Re: Re:
But I certainly own an account with all those things now

Then delete all the data associated with that account and close it. You can do that.
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Sesquatch, 14 Jan 2014 @ 7:52am

no automatic invitations from Google+
There are two different things, which are mixed up here.

1. google never sends automatic invitations to put someone to your circles. It however proposes possible candidates to be included in your circles based on your emails (i think), or based on the number of common "friends", people who appear in both of your circles.
This should not be considered an invitation from the other party (i.e. this case her ex), as it is not an invitation from the other person, rather an automatic suggestion for you to put someone in your circles (which can be anything, e.g. "most hated men on Earth").
If this was the case, the lawsuit should be dropped, as the exgirlfriend only got an automatic suggestion from Google, based on common friends.

2. The ex-boyfriend might have put the ex-girlfriend into one of his circles. The ex-girlfriend in this case got an automatic report on this fact. Google then suggest, that she can also put him in one of her circles. Again, this is something totally different from Facebook. Putting someone into my circles does not mean anything. It can mean that i can share information in the future with her more easily (if I want). It can also mean that i created a circle where i put the craziest persons I ever known.
It does not imply however, that the other person needs to put me into her circles at all.
So - unsimilar to Facebook, where invitations for "friendship" are sent, putting someone into your circle does not mean you want to become their friends.

(of course if you put someone in your circle, by default you will receive updates on their PUBLIC activity, which is shared with the public)
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