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Fake activity?

Yesterday I uploaded a movie file to Dropbox for some friends to download. Immediately after, I decided to check from a browser that wasn't logged in, to see what it would look like for them if they didn't have a Dropbox account. I was shocked to discover, under “Activity”: “Patricia Johnson downloaded this file” and “Anthony Abate viewed this file” (neither name recognised by me):

(Not logged in)

So, then I logged in to investigate, but only saw “Traffic and insights: See who’s visiting... Upgrade to Dropbox Professional to start tracking.”:

(Logged in)

Surely this isn’t a scare tactic to get me to upgrade to a paid account, is it??

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Jay

Hi @DoctorDada, thanks for joining the Community!

The image you saw in the first screenshot was an example of what file activity would look like if you were signed into your account.

It doesn't mean that those users were real or accessed the file.

Hope this helps to clarify matters!

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Michał

Hi, did you create share link or did you share this file with certain people? If you create simple share link you friends could share it with other person. Everyone can see shared link if has the link-code. When you invite certain person only this person can view it. Maybe this is the reason of the strange activity. Ask your friends did they forward this link.

Jay

Hi @DoctorDada, thanks for joining the Community!

The image you saw in the first screenshot was an example of what file activity would look like if you were signed into your account.

It doesn't mean that those users were real or accessed the file.

Hope this helps to clarify matters!

DoctorDada

Hi Michał, I just moved the file to a folder in my local Dropbox folder and, when it synched, copied the Dropbox link and sent it to my friends. They definitely didn't forward the link to anyone. And, anyway, I saw those messages within a minute of the file being on Dropbox, so it would be VERY unlikely that two (unknown) people would have found the link and accessed the file that quickly. I believe that Dropbox is lying, that the file wasn't really downloaded and viewed; Dropbox just wanted me to upgrade my account. (In fact I uploaded 3 other files and they all show exactly the same “Activity”.)

Just now I did another experiment: I copied a 3-byte text file to a Dropbox folder, copied the link, opened it in a not-logged-in browser and this is what I saw:

Screen Shot 2020-10-02 at 10.28.57 pm.png

“Viewed 5 hours ago”? I don’t think so!

This is very disappointing.

DoctorDada

> Hope this helps to clarify matters!

Well, it does clarify now what happened, but it was not at all clear at the time. Don’t you think this should be explained? Otherwise, it just looks dishonest.

Kristy Jessica

umm I just got a complaint from one of my customers I sent an exclusive video project to. He was furious! Can Dropbox please remove this whack feature?!?!

Walter

Hey there @Kristy Jessica; thanks for using Dropbox!

We do have a dedicated section on the Community where you can post feature requests or suggest a change on existing features, so I'd recommend posting your idea there so other similar-minded users can provide their own input on this one and up-vote it too to show their interest.

Let us know if you have any questions!

T J.1

I too got a call from my manager asking why I shared the video to these strange people.

You could have put a large "EXAMPLE" on top, but no, let's make people think the file was shared outside what it should be.

What's next ? Sell protection against hackers, and place scary messages about how my account / file was accessed from India, China, Timbuktu or some other random place, just to get me to purchase.

Unfortunately it's pointless to suggest changes here.

Maria Bogdankova

My client saw that the file was being viewed by other people, but I did not send the link to this folder to anyone but her.
Can you please tell us what this means? After all, I did not send this link to anyone else.
Thank you in advance for your response.

Снимок экрана 2020-10-13 180759.jpg

Lusil

Hey @Maria Bogdankova, thanks for reaching out to us.

I've moved your post here, where other users have expressed a similar concern.

When you have a moment, have a look at what is mentioned and don't hesitate to get back to get back to us if you have any other questions.

Thanks again!

Ben Amada

This is confusing and was questioned by our CEO on who Patricia and Anthony are.

Rustle

This is surely the most stupid and utterly idiotic feature I have ever seen. I'm now having to look at moving all shared files out of Dropbox because I'm embarassed by my clients seeing that 'Patricia Johnson' and 'Anthony Abate' have also viewed the files even though they are spurious users who have been added by Dropbox to make it appear that Dropbox is going to tell everyone who looks at the files that they have looked at the files to anyone else who looks at the files even though I have taken time to ensure the settings do not allow this!!!

This makes it look like we are committing a personal security breach by using Dropbox even though we aren't.

Why do this?

What purpose can this serve Dropbox?

rmcpartland

Horrible dark pattern that needs removing. It's not clear that this is an example of activity and serves only to upsell and create worry that uninvited guests are viewing files.