When I followed the link, it immeditately let me see all the content. Every church member’s address, phone number, email addresses, kids names and birthdays. All of it. I wasn’t even logged into Google yet. I was shocked. I couldn’t edit it, but once I logged into Google I could.

I was never given any authentication info for logging into the document nor was I asked to verify that I was the person who was given access. How did Google know that I was authorized to edit it? Simply because I received the email with the appropriate link? What if I forwarded that link to someone else? Is there some way that the authentication is tied into that link and my email account? If there is, it was completely hidden and it seemed that the info was easily accessible or anyone. It felt very, very vulnerable.

Needless to say, we removed the document and stuck with the old tech local spreadsheet.