By the way, I wanted to point this out about a new feature on LJ...

[valis2]

LJ has a new feature called My Guests which will keep track of who visits your LJ. It will also track which LJs you visit. Supposedly this new feature is automatically set to "off," but when I went to my account settings, it was set to "on." So if you don't want My Guests to keep track of which journals you visit while you're logged in, I recommend either stopping at your home page or at your account settings, where a dialogue box will pop up and ask you which you want.

More about this at the official LJ News entry.

ETA: Just to clarify--as florahart mentions below, the service is not actually turned on yet. It may be that they will change the default setting to "off" when they enable the service.

The original feedback entry is here, if you want to take a look

Comments

[luvboromir24601.livejournal.com]

Thanks for warning about this! *goes to make sure it is off*

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anyone post about this, which was surprising, so I thought I'd mention it. :)

[florahart]

It shows a default of on but doesn't go into effect until you click on it, in theory, and also isn't actually in effect yet.

I have NO IDEA who wants that shit; I hate when people use LJ Toys (which does the same damn thing) because it's creepy.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a feeling that it wasn't active yet, but still, I wanted to mention it just in case. Not everybody watches LJ News...

And I agree--I get a little weirded out when I see NoScript weeding out LJToys stuff.

[mingbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mine was on, too. And I didn't get a popup when I visited. Thanks for the warning!

They should totally rename this thing "FULL-ON STALKER MODE"!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a little surprised by this. There's no way to monitor your own journal without having others monitor you, either. You have to do all or nothing. :(

[gmth.livejournal.com]

It's not set to "on." For whatever reason, LJ decided it made sense to have the radio button default to on when you check the settings, but the service is still off until you decide to turn it on.

Yeah, I don't get it, either.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

It's weird--there are so many other things I can think of that people might want, or have been begging for. I've never seen anyone mention wanting this particular service, y'know? Strange.

[catsintheattic.livejournal.com]

It's the most useless tool they've ever come up with. Thanks for the warning!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of assistance! *hugs*

[snapelike.livejournal.com]

Again an utterly privacy-invading crappy feature from LJ... Thanks for the heads up.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

My pleasure, I assure you!

[mnemosyne-redux.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up - I checked it and the box was checked to make My Guest active whenever they launch it. Which is highly annoying.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that it wouldn't actually start it unless you confirm so, but still, it panicked me for a second. lol!

[mcsheplovers.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I guess that's what that box that kept popping up everytime I logged onto my LJ was trying to tell me! That's what I get for ignoring it.
Thanks for your post, its made me think to go and check out my account settings!
Beth

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Glad to have helped! I haven't seen it mentioned much, so I thought I'd give a headsup. :)

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

When I logged on a few weeks ago I got a pop up box asking if I wanted this new feature on or off. It did not automatically set for me. But perhaps they have changed things?

This seems like a really stupid feature.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I got the same popup; however, the default choice was on. I don't think that it would actually turn on unless you hit the confirm button, but still, might as well be safe, y'know?

And yeah, it seems like a creepy feature.