It is very bad practice, OK to work off a case of suggestive follow then fine but to actually Auto-follow is not acceptable and Google do need to fix this yesterday.

Google needs a wake up slap.
Their arrogance is historic.
Plating as the one media company that doesn’t have to listen isn’t based on a superiority of minds, but an awkward social incompetence.

I’m in disbelief that they are so detached, so brazenly arrogant in their drive for more $$, that they even shipped this horrific “product”.

And before the snotty nosed geek set starts the old, tired, “It’s free. It’s a few buttons”,
just shut up.
You’re juvenile misunderstanding of enterprise business systems is noise pollution.

In grown up life, there are expectations around
passive payment platforms.

They make a lot more money with your “free” Gmail account than you could comprehend.

Bravo for your post, Harriet!

Seriously, I don’t have any of these kind of privacy issues myself with gmail, BUT I can see why so many people are upset.

Companies (and some people) are getting WAY too comfortable sharing everything online. I don’t go online to be social with strangers. Yet, in the drive to build networks and therefore ad revenue, companies like Google, Facebook et al. have been pushing sharing like a bad pimp.

I’m personally SICK of it. It is to the point where I can’t post anything online because it is instantly seen by my sisters, mother, best friend and any potential employers. And if it isn’t connected now – IT WILL BE. Now we can’t even keep our damned email private.

What next Google? Google TwatView, so you can decide if it’s worth stalking that hot chick you saw at the mall, snapped a shot of, and used Google’s face recognition technology to find online, and then found her home with Google Latitude, and checked it out on Streetview? Oh, and you even know her hubby’s out of town thanks to Layar Reality Browser on your android phone showing you the nearby tweet saying as much, and guiding you to her house if she didn’t happen to be sharing with Latitude?

Now some say this is extreme… but all of this is just an “oops” away on security settings.

When I first saw this entry (in, ironically enough, Google Reader), my blood ran cold.

This is, by all means, the most brutal and uncompromising example of the kind of privacy violations that organizations like Facebook and Google can do.

And I’m willing to bet, at some point in this comment thread, if it hasn’t happened already, that someone will say that “the age of privacy is over”, and try to downplay the seriousness of something like this.

And that sentiment will, inevitably, betray the privilege that commenter has, because, like me, and very likely like almost every other middle-class affluent (very likely) straight cis-male tech-geek out there, that commenter has the privilege of counting that every contact they have made in Google Mail will not, at the very worst, threaten their goddamn life or safety.

So, to anyone who wants to open their mouth to bleat about how “the age of privacy is over” I say: shut it, and check your privilege. This is one example where it won’t, and this is one situation where one exception is already too damn far.

Please. This is the smallest of problems.

If she had an openly shared feed before Buzz her husband could just have subscribed to her Atom feed and seen all her comments anyhow.

The only difference now is that she now has become aware of the fact that he could do that.

This is really annoying. I just started using Buzz feature but didn’t know about it’s flaws.. I think i will stop using it.. Thanks for this post buddy.. Really helpful..!

Atleast this specific lady had a very bad issue with the new Buzz and auto info sharing option :(

Sad story, … but i insist that an anonymous web is less useful than a web where everybody knows your name.

Robin, just to continue your post:

GooGLe CEO Eric Schmidt is on Buzz and he is following only 4 users. All 4 with no public profiles… Hmm, Privacy concerns ? Do they know something we should all know ?

You can check here Eric Schmidt Public profile :http://www.google.com/profiles/109938146389129062343

;-)

Still around the world people will be ok with default privacy settings. It’s not just USA product.

I think the first para sums it up all.

Wait… I’m confused by this article and her post. What does auto-following have to do with her ex-husband seeing her G Reader comments? Auto-follow has to do with who YOU follow, not who follows you.

People following you is a fundamental of social networking. I don’t even use social networking sites, and I get that.

I have tried Buzz. I recall when I OPTED IN to it that it first asked me which of my sites I wanted to share. To which I responded… none.

This is Google’s Facebook Beacon.

Massive fail…

And the first time someone, like this user with the abusive ex, gets hurt…or worse…killed…you can expect a legislative & litigious backlash against the Mothership.

“F$@k you, Google, indeed.”

I figured there would be problems the moment i saw it. Gmail users did not originally signup for something as public as twitter. Google should have figured that out from the beginning, by first taking you through the steps of creating a public profile. That would make it more profound to users they are sharing public information, giving them a moment to think if they want it and opt out immediately.

Also… click ex-husband, click block ex-husband. I would think someone with her life experiences would be in tune with that type of thinking already.

And to your point about how this comment misses the point of Google confusing the hell out of people… I’m sorry, that is not even slightly confusing.

Seems like sensationalism to me. I do hope that she is a real person with real issues (and is dealing with her real issues) and not some Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/Twitter troll.

Buzz did not ask me to opt in on sites when it first showed up. When I looked it had automatically connected Picasa, YouTube and GoogleReader. I had to manually remove each one.

I have a Google profile. It’s blank – no info in it – but if I understand correctly (and I may not) the sites were auto-linked because of it.

In exploring Buzz somehow Picasa and GoogleReader (but not YouTube) were reconnected – THOUGH I DID NOT ADD THEM.

I finally just deactivated Buzz. I’m fed up with constantly trying to figure out which service is exposing what – and being in the tech industry I do not simply have the luxury of dropping all these time sucking services, since it’s an unwritten requirement to have LinkedIn and Facebook these days to show “you’re in the know” when job hunting.

Your compassion & understanding are admirable.

I hope the others in your life extend you the same courtesy.

lol.

i like buzz, but i haven’t used it yet. i’ll wait until everything is fixed first.

You do have to register your profile. It doesn’t automatically start publishing everything.

How do you even change the Privacy settings for BUZZ??

why would you use something without knowing it’s flaws? isn’t that just opening yourself up to x amount of possibilities? huh.

I’m surprised Google released something this big and flawed directly to the masses instead of the Labs/Preview route, which they do usually.

I’m even more surprised no one in Google itself weren’t concerned/aware of these issues before releasing it. For a company that claims to hire “the best and the brightest” through rigorous interviews, this is not acceptable at all.

@jobo Sounds like you were on there before they made some of the initial fixes. I had to add them all manually.

you know how when you usually sign up for something or when you install something new you get those annoying follow directions which you can go through or skip to start using the new program? google could benefit from something like that if they had some sort of primer when you accept buzz that introduces them to what buzz is/does and also how you can set privacy settings and contacts and such.

all of this otherwise is hilarious. they still need to change that horrible logo.

Even facebook has to make updates and didnt get it right the first time…but then again you sign up for facebook b/c its a social network…i didnt sign up for gmail for social updates, ‘buzz’ing but I will mess with it when i have free time.

i dont understand complaints though. If mail gets delivered to your house, you don’t also want to have parties there, especially with strangers

opps *Do* understand

dont resist google. buzz is gonna take over and thats that. The reality is they are squashing everybody in the location based service market. just like they did to the gps market. bunch of buzz haters in here.

I think this makes a strong case of enforcement of restraining orders in the digital medium. Following someone digitally should be treated the same as following them in real life, which would entitle someone with a restraining order to get the police involved and send jerkoffs like her husband to jail.

way to RTFA, asshole. she had marked her Reader feeds as private, but shared them in a group with her mother and partner.

Here’s the kicker: You are only concerned of privacy if you are trying to hide something. It’s why I don’t really care. Whatever. Tap the lines, my e-mail… got nothing to hide… and maybe the real issue here is not the privacy google could have made better, but rather, that lady has some relationship issues to deal with.

Google should be smart enough to know that the people you email aren’t necessarily the people you want in your social network.

Heck, Google should also realize that people might want more than one social network. That which I share with my friends isn’t necessarily what I’d share with my mom or co-workers. They seriously need to fix that before it becomes usable.

What kills me is didn’t Google make this *exact same mistake* when they introduced sharing with Reader?

Email contacts != social network.

@Mariachi if you are right, then Wikipedia must not have the following..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy

I don’t see what the huge deal is. People with things to hide should be more careful with what they are getting into. I personally could care less if anyone read my status updates, blog or facebook posts. I guess I wouldn’t want others reading all of my emails, so if it comes to that than I might have an issue.

Big Fail! But I’m glad things like this keep happening so people realize that having a choice for privacy is a good thing. There have been a couple people that have emailed me about my 6d project from this site and rest assured it’s getting there. Please keep patient.

I turned on Buzz, read about privacy issue thanks to Scoble and then turned it off. Waiting until Google fixes it.

Given the two last big Google news blasts were about the Chinese dissident’s contact lists, followed by public notice of mysterious NSA cooperation, this is abysmal stupidity.

Hopefully a congressman or two will rattle some cages. As far as what to do?
On the web, the only acceptable way is folks must “opt in”, with clear explanations, clear steps.

Adobe, for another example, on the flash download site now has a little box, by default checked to install the spyware google toolbar. Easy to miss, by design.

Google too did this by design to increase usage numbers. Bad choice.

The only good news here is it a scan of the techmeme stories indicates it appears to have backfired, badly.
I really hope nobody is really harmed by this.
This woman’s story is scary, and too damn common.

Not to mention, Chinese dissidents now wondering if there will be a knock at the door
because one of their contacts made an innocent mistake.

The more I think about this, the more angry I am about it.
I do hope a Congressperson or two gets the idea to enforce opt in only for changes, for any darn thing.

I’m generally ok with Buzz. Or was until I opened it up this morning and found that Buzz had posted videos (that had been marked as private) to my stream as public.

They had been posted after I’d gone to bed, so unless I have a sleepwalking/internet related problem… I had nothing to do with the posting of these private videos to my buzz stream.

I don’t mind sharing my life with my friends via Buzz. I don’t have anything to hide from them. I just want to be the ONLY one who has a say in what I share and when I start sharing it.

I turned Buzz off 24 hrs after I turned it on. It was an invasion into my email, it was a privacy risk, and it was a terrible product implementation. It shows a complete and total disconnect on Google’s part leaning towards arrogance. There would have to be an amazing revelation shined upon me before I’d consider turning it back on.

As the saying goes: “if you have nothing to hide then why do you have curtains in your house?”

Anyway, privacy isn’t only about having something to hide or not – it’s also about having the right to keep some things personal, or to control who knows about them.

u know all its flaws? is there a list?

the “flaws” are being figured out as ppl learn abt them…duh!

Agree completely. You sign up for email with the expectation that it is PRIVATE and will remain that way. What ever happened to “DO NO EVIL”?

Google – “Do no evil”
Facebook – “Do lots of evil”
Google – “Ok, do some evil”

Why don’t people just stop using these sites? Remember life before Facebook and Google? Was pretty good wasn’t it.

Hooray for Google Apps for Domains – no buzz for me, all the GMail functionality!

whenever the new applications or software are launched it always had privacy issue. so there is nothing new in this

How do you turn off Buzz? What ever happened to opting into services? Yahoo! did something similar (but different) in their mail client. Now when you send an email to someone, they show you recent updates from that persons other Yahoo! properties (flickr, profile etc.).

These companies are actually doing more damage for information sharing than good.

At least this isn’t another Google fanboy post.

The problem with arrogant tech companies like Google is low emotional intelligence. Just because something can be built technologically doesn’t mean it should be built.

Tech doesn’t change our basic nature- it just changes how we express it. And one basic thing we all have is a need for privacy. We have many ‘selves’- our self at work, with our parents, with our lovers, with our friends, commenting on internet forums. We don’t want those selves to collide.

The main early criticism of Facebook was that it mixed your friends from work with your parents, with your drinking buddies. Do you really want your boss- or your mum- seeing the drunken pictures you share with your frat friends?

Google should have learned from this. The reason facebook, etc have not killed e-mail is because e-mail is inherently private, while Facebook is social- and we need a private space where we control who sees what.

Invading the private space of e-mail with public social functions is a recipe for disaster. Yahoo tried it in their mail and it flopped. Microsoft tried it with Live mail, and it flopped. Google’s ‘solution’ was to force it down your throat by ramming it into your inbox whether you like it or not.

Gfail.

There are the 2 points I’ve been making in my debates over buzz.

1) Email is private and between recipients. But Buzz is obviously open and broadcasting. To me, these products do not belong in the same spot.. at least not yet.

It would be different if Buzz were under a separate interface or if Gmail was more of a new product instead of a solid product used for serious work.

2) Opt-in vs opt-out combined with the Twitter-like anybody-can-follow model. One of the first things that irked me about Twitter was that strangers could follow me. In time, I didn’t care much since I became more Twitter consumer than producer. Also tweets, by their very own nature, don’t give away too much privacy.

But in the case of Buzz, you’re having whole conversations anyone can see. It’s a little off-putting, especially in the aforementioned Gmail context. When I first opened Buzz and saw conversations from random people I’ve emailed (whom aren’t my real friends or contacts and have no care of following), I felt like I had violated someone else’s privacy.

I can see why Buzz tried to infer the social network because it’s just easier to gain traction that way but I think it comes at a real cost. At least with FB, your network has been vetted by you. I don’t think Google gets that. Sometimes algorithms work… sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you need humans to make decisions.

For a bunch of geniuses, they sure are dumb!

Interesting. I relate the internet like a park. It’s public domain. So don’t expect to have privacy. Sure you can have a conversation at a bench park to which you would rather others don’t hear, but remember where you are. Other’s could be evesdropping. It’s why I still don’t understand why they keep putting in movies key plot revealing conversations at a park!

+1

Buzz feels experimental and untested. Releasing it under Gmail, a tried and tested product used for serious productivity, is seriously a bad idea. I find it very risky and a dilution of the Gmail brand.

Meh.

When you feel like you have privacy (at least in the presence of friends) you feel like you can act more naturally. Usually people have a public or professional facing personality which is different from that which they used with their friends and family. There are many things that go on in people’s personal and professional life they do not want the world knowing about and it’s legit they don’t want the world to know about it.

That’s a subtle but huge difference from caring about privacy because you have something to hide.

For example, do you think we should be allowed to read all of President Obama’s buzzes? I mean he should have nothing to hide right? What about celebrities who are trying to avoid paparazzi? What about women with crazy stalker ex-boyfriends? The list goes on and on.

Relax.. they’re just starting… It has been what? 3 days? There’s a lot of room for improvement here.

I guess, this could be the answer that we are all waiting for… How to arrange the big social-mess (created by FB, twitter, etc? Answer: Google Buzz. Rumors suggest this would be connected to Google Wave.. Now that’s sweet :D Details: http://bit.ly/google-wave-why-should-you-use-it

What do Twitter, your blog and your Facebook posts all have in common?

You have complete control over what gets posted, who is in your network, and who can see what gets posted (yes, even your blog is capable of this).

With Buzz, Google is deciding what gets posted and who can see it.

Bye buzz. I just turned it off. Google should come with a better idea. Not all users are geeks. You should know that google.

Fail again, Google !

So an extremely net-savvy blogger enables an option that they later regret, resulting in over-sharing on an over-sharing service. Time to blame Google?

That said, can we start suing Winchester for guncleaning accidents?

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow corporations to directly give money to politicians. Google’s got money to spend… don’t look for the politicians to do anything that will endanger their bankrolls.

Put this is context. How many people have accidentally sent email to the wrong person? Or hit ‘Reply All’ when they really meant ‘Reply’?

Email is not just about private conversation, because obviously people subscribe to mailing lists, and merge their work and personal life into one account.

There are things Google can do to mitigate this, but IMHO the hyperbole over it is really trying to create a mountain out of a molehill.

actually not true and the reason is real people with real privacy concerns. There is no way in the world I want Google to have access to my physical location on top of all the other data.

Google is getting too large and the corporate greed of owning everything is very worrying to lots of people. Competition will be coming and Google is spreading itself thin across many niche markets…

I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s Google’s fault. The security features of turning off things like that are built into Buzz. I set up my Buzz an hour after the announcement, and I have had no privacy issues, BECAUSE I READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND USER AGREEMENTS. Google gave people the tools, but people chose not to use them, either out of their own ignorance or laziness. Not Google’s fault.

Oh, and guess what: YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE IT. There’s a nice link at the bottom of the Gmail page that lets you turn off Buzz.

It occurs to me that no one that’s ever lived in the hood is as quick to dismiss privacy concerns as their middle-class counterparts that grew up in the ‘burbs. People are dangerous.

EXACTLY. What Facebook and Google have done is effectively discourage me from using the Internet! I don’t trust any of them with any information anymore.

I’m BACK to using my old Outlook Express and my ISP email address. It’s not great, but at least I’m pretty sure Comcast isn’t broadcasting my e-mails or spying on my contacts. My Facebook account is now largely dormant. I only log in to accept new friends. Which is a bummer, because I loved it only months ago.

As a libertarian, I am totally loath to say this, but we need someone to sue these folks. Those EULAs are a joke, and the companies are NOT HONEST about their intentions.

Wrong. You can only be yourself if you’re anon. True, that means a small percentage of people act like morons, but the rest of us can be free to express true feelings without self-censoring more progressive views that some people may inaccurately judge us on in the wrong context.

So says the guy profiting off of people’s personal information that they never agreed (or wanted) to share.

Baaaaa.

The problem is that everybody with a Google account is using it. It’s turned on for everyone and you have to deactivate it. Most people don’t even know what privacy problem has occured.

Mariachi,
This isn’t just a matter of what you supposedly choose to do in the park. The woman in the blog did not subscribe to Buzz and automatically made her personal information, including location and workplace, to an abusive ex husband merely because she emailed him in the past, you know, probably while she was still married to him. The implications are monumentally scary and life threatening. On top of abusive partners/stalkers, who do find, hurt, and kill their ex’s more often than one would like to think about, there are also journalists who communicate with anonymous sources over email, potentially putting their lives in danger when their identities are revealed to other email contacts. I’ve never used Buzz but just saw I was automatically following and being followed because I have an email account with google.

You can turn off this f’ing buzz by going to gmail, then scroll the page down until you reach the end of the page, and click on “Turn off buzz”. Not 100% sure, but it’ll probably fix this shit.

Why does the world need so much social bull-shit…?

Even if you don’t want Google Buzz, it shows a link in the Gmail navigation menu. If you click on it, you see that you’re using it, even if you said “no” on the login page.

i totally sympathize with that woman, read her entire blog. one question i have (just in search of the solution).

“access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend”

were those items previously private, or were they visible to the world, and now they are simply being highlighted to her most frequent contacts (which is also a minor security risk as well).

just wondering….not at all inconsiderate to this womans plight, just want to understand how this affects other people as well.

for people that do not use google reader, are their comments, etc exposed?

It’s fun to believe everything someone rants about on their blog.

If she truly marked stuff private, it’d remain private and her abusive ex-husband couldn’t see it

So either she didn’t really mark it private and now she’s realized her error, or she’s erroneously assuming abusive ex-husband can see it.

Your mail does stay private. “Buzz” is a totally separate data stream.

The problem is that people read these posts and haven’t tried the service then it’s like a game of telephone and the message gets farther and farther from the truth.

If you don’t opt-out of following/being followed (and I do agree that you should be opted out by default and have to choose to opt in) what you will see if a list of the names of the people following/being followed. No email addresses (unless the person is already in your contacts list) and certainly no email. The names will be linked to public profiles if the person has a public profile.

That’s 100% incorrect.

Maybe you need to set up a throw-away google account and try the service, then you’ll have a clue as to what you’re talking about.

Oh boy, I just notice that using the link at the bottom of your Gmail page to turn off Buzz is NOT enough. Its just hiding the label. This is a fucking nightmare.

Here is how you (hopefully) disable Buzz.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=171460

and it’s opt-out
they didn’t ask people if they wanted to use it

hahah i don’t do first gen of anything. i’m sorry i have a don’t be stupid radar. i mean obviously google didn’t have everything on their end covered and decided to get into this game so they can jump in sooner than later and fix along the way. otherwise they would have made this beta and tested it with outsiders instead of just internally and their group of selectees. it looks like this new buzz aspect is a mashup of several different things that either they had been thinking about for a while or they were thinking about and acted upon through aquistions of similar companies providing that real time social connect service, or they heard what people were saying about wave being confusing and decided to just create a subheavy version of wave and integrate in the platform where they already have a big user base in gmail. so no i don’t buzz. i do like it though and i’m going to be a supporter of it, even if they never change the udly dialogue bubble logo.

i saw you post something like this about why email and a public stream like this don’t go together in one of the other buzz posts and i thought it was good. i agree with that point actually. i also agree with everyone else who feel like this buzz chicken is not fully cooked. they should have just had it in labs or something. i’m not sure it’s diluting the gmail or google brand like someone else was pointing out, but they better work hard at it before it does go the way of fail. it’s still pretty new even if it’s based on existing technology.

lol. see and that’s the problem. i’m not going to go ahead right away and use buzz without reading/viewing whatever information google has to provide to me the user. i don’t want to open myself up like some people are saying about backdoor security risks or defaults and such.

and for the commenter above…you know once buzz was enabled to everyone it appeared in my gmail list, but i am not using it. i don’t follow anyone, no one is following me, etc. i don’t care for it until they add more features i want.

thanks derrick. i just did that now. that fucking ugly circus logo was beginning to piss me off.

thanks google. i love my gmail. i officially spend more time there than on my hotmail account. interesting.

there are simply just so many stupid people in this world.

hayoo my comment just jumped right over tina and mariachi. interesting.

you can follow people without registering your profile

I have a question: if you block someone does it get notified that you blocked him ??? I’m really upset at Google right now, I don’t want to block people because I don’t want they be able to follow me in the first place. For me gMAIL is for MAIL. period.

@merry: Screw you spammer. You’ve been linking to your post on every single Google Beacon (uh, I mean “Buzz”) article on TC since it launched.

No dude. Google Beacon (“Buzz”) is a clusterfrak.

Ya, that works really well in China too.

You need to think outside your own personal experience, man…

Anonymity is, sometimes, essential to freedom.

@wrong: Wrong. There’s an email address hole too… Read a couple of TC posts from earlier.

BUZZ = Beacon

Same bad idea, same invasion of privacy, same public backlash, same really fast backpedaling to fix the clusterfrak.

@ Milo :

Why don’t you publish your address and phone number along with your idiotic comment then?

Oh, and since privacy means nothing to you, how about some pictures and perhaps your social security #?

Asshole.

Bite it fanboy.

Sadly, you are correct. The Supreme Court just crapped on our future.

I’ve a suggestion to that self-proclaimed “lorem ipsum”: “If you can’t push da button, stop using computer all together”…
buzz is good
Google is good

ps
apple is bad

Putting something so public (Buzz) right inside so private (gmail) can mislead a lot of people.

I bet many non-net-savvy Buzz users doesn’t even know what they post on Buzz are searchable on Google.

Woooosh…. Right over his head.

That doesn’t quite solve it. You have to go on your “Google Public Profile” to delete all your messages (no sure about messages you replied to though), and un-check share the list of people you follow.

Basically remove everything in the “Public Profile”.

Don’t be silly, how can people relax when google is broadcasting people’s information they consider private. Would you be happy if it was your dirty linen which google was doing what ever they want with. Yes it’s only three days, but what happened to beta testing and opting out. Oh I remebered they are rushing to get buzz out there so they can beat MS who talked about some like this last year. Google dont want the title of copy cat, at the cost of Gmail user privacy. If this was the much hated MS Bloggers would have destroyed them, but good old google they never do wrong.
This is going to make google apps unattractive to enterprise user coz at the end of the day privacy matters to them more than casual users like us. I am gald I’m not with Gmail.

Exactly. I use my Gmail for work, and one client doesn’t need to see who else I work for.

It would appear that Iran’s opposition may have been saved by the Iranian censors from being buzzted by no-evil-intended Google (Gmail Banned By Iran – http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/10/gmail-banned-by-iran-is-twitter-next/)

This is yet another attemt by google to get their hands on more of our data, even more from those gmail account users. This is going to be a huge turn of to the enterprise user because privacy matters more to them than casual users. MS idea idea for outlook connector google rush and do a copy cat and MS look the copy cat because google got to the finish line first. But at least MS had the desency to beta test theirs first. Google in the name of victory disregard user privacy and opting out. Shame on you. Yet another PR dissaster because of arrogance.

wtf are you talking about….
Internet’s like a park?
Personally I prefer it see it as a series of tubes.

People haven’t smell the rat that is google. Well I did fan boys and dont use their services nomore. Was it no last month they were threatening to leave China for being hacked and managing to generate publicity for themselves in the process? What do they go and do, placing this spayware called buzz in user Gmail accounts without a opt-out. Congats u bit MS to the finish line on this on but you f*****d up this one big time son.

Perhaps you could be useful and provide your full name then? How about your phone number and home address while you’re at it?

Changing settings would be the right thing to do.

Scroll to the very bottom of you gmail window and there is a TINY link which reads “Disable Buzz.”

I already did…

I have been a big supporter of google until recently, but the buzz privacy issues changed my mind instantly. I was so angry at how they handled this launch. My email was PRIVATE. Do you understand that google? Noone needs to know who i contact except me.

Don’t be evil? How dare google use this as a catchphrase. They don’t care about anything other than money, and certainly not peoples lives. As this great post by TC points out, their actions have real life consequences which they should consider for once.

See you late google, i’m back to yahoo mail after this one.

Google Buzz helped me reconnect with an old friend!

I gotta say that I am really loving this great new FREE google service!

Just today I wondering why this girl I had been dating, and by dating, I mean met at a bar once, hasn’t returned any of my emails or phone calls.

I was ‘worried’ that something might have happened to her.

Well, after emailing her friends, it turns out she is ok! Several of her friends have promised to let her know that I’ve been asking about her. One of them said that she lost her phone and…connection to the internet, and that’s why I haven’t heard from her.

Thanks Google! I was beginning to think I might never see her again.

that’s a great analogy!

we all know what happens at the park at night: anonymous sex & robberies …just like the real internet

ok, blocking is terribly broken. i have two gmail accounts and did these steps
1) used account2 to follow account1
2) went to account1 and blocked account2
3) buzzed on account1
4) magic! on account2 i am still following account1 and seeing the new message from account1 :D
5) back in account1, account2 is still shown as blocked

also turning off buzz simply hides it, it doesnt do anything to your profile or people following you or anything

for extra fun: turn off buzz, then turn it on. look, account2 is back in account1′s followers, unblocked :D

words can not describe this fail…

I’m not a fanboy, but ‘wrong’ is ‘right’

Couldn’t agree more. Really eloquently put too

I am completely outraged at how Google compromised the online identities of its users by taking disparate services and handles and tying them together without so much as letting its users know what was going on (much less let them opt-out before it did so). Now it’s only if they’re lucky that no one will be physically harmed, which is completely the opposite of Do No Evil.

But if your proposal was in place, this would have been even worse: someone could have gone to jail without even having logged into a Google service since Buzz was launched, because Google auto-followed people for anyone who had a Gmail account regardless of whether or not they made a profile.

There is nothing good that could have come of the decision to auto-follow and whoever was on the team that decided to do that should be damn ashamed of themselves.

Google can’t act surprised that Buzz’s anti-privacy settings put that woman in danger. I warned against this very possibility in 2007:

“Google has unilaterally decided that everyone you have ever chatted with in Google Talk will know that you’ve read and shared this item…. What if you were thinking of leaving a physically abusive relationship and you’ve shared spousal abuse articles with the few people you trusted?

http://www.wisebread.com/google-reader-invades-your-privacy-and-its-not-going-to-stop

You can turn off Google Buzz at the bottom of the page.

This isn’t the same privacy issue, but the google public profile uses the same name as Buzz.

That means that even if you use Buzz only in private mode, and only with close friends, your full name is exposed to the internet. The Google public profile adds your photo to your first and last name by default.

You read my mind, jobo! Buzz is so flawed, so un-google like….I don’t know what happened to these guys, did they start to work at this project 3 weeks ago and threw out there the first version of their product, still in tests? I TURNED OFF the stupid thing, sorry Google, your buzzing is annoying.You abused us!

You got the essence: ‘untested,experimental’. So very sad and true..Google was an example of technological decency and conduite.Now, it’s gone.

Personally I’m not particularly worried about butthurt feminazis. The fact that she actually runs a blog about this type of thing rather than just moving on tells me that her opinion isn’t one I should be particularly mindful of.

>Implying this woman is at all net-savvy

I used to use Gmail for my main email, but grew concerned about privacy in the last two months. I guess I was right…I know have a private email account using a private domain name.

Read this article and tell me that you think is all harmless? http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/11/wrong_kind_of_buzz_around_google_buzz what about political activists in china, iran or any brutal regime who may have had their safety compromised by Googles selfish and thoughtless rollout.
If you still think exposing people and those they contact to the world isn’t a big deal then you are a fool.

That doesn’t actually disable any of Buzz’s features for anyone else. It just means you don’t see the little Buzz logo on your page. Your profile page is still public to anyone else: there is no way to turn that off.

I wonder if Big-G gave her a Nexus One for that….I would have appreciated it.

/irony off

these helped me a bit:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=1d5a9e58f5f7cf37&hl=en

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=3a8efd03add7beea&hl=en

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=54ab7ba725976878&hl=en

btw, my new mantra: Google is your frenemy.

Because if there’s someone who understands enterprise business it’s some that writes like you. Good job!

Buzz is an example of google’s arrogance and utter disregard of customer privacy.

Google lacks ethics and will do everything it takes to make $$$. I didn’t realize G in google is for “greed”.

Shame on you Google!!

looking at all the hype over buzz, I am glad that I have disabled the service in full.

Have watched the comments of people using the service and feel I am justified.

you can click on any person in buzz, ok it does not give their email out, but any linked service is visible and you can surf that persons attachments.

Gets real interesting when it uploads gchat as people are already forgetting is now public and peoples emails are appearing. Plus you do not have to subscribe to that person to view this either.

Google has to remember that kids also use gmail and are probably not aware of any implications that this can bring, as there are lots of unsavoury characters out on the web looking for things ie photos and emails etc etc. Oh and should we forget the spammers too.

Privacy is always required – either for good or bad reasons !!

asdfg, it’s not a matter of her being “butthurt” as you so “aptly” proclaim, but that her physical safety and LIFE was potentially threatened by this dangerous privacy flaw. And if you read her page you would have found that he was on her email contacts in the first place because he had been threatening her over email, an email address she kept so she would be able to know when his abusive behavior was escalating and he’d email more threats. And whether so runs a blog is completely irrelevant to the situation, that google’s fuck-up can put people’s lives at risk. In short, don’t be such a douche.

I think you can make your Google Profile completely private, can’t you?

Holy crap…well I found the turn off feature but if this is true that it only turns it off for me and not for people viewing me….I think I’ve had it with Google. I got really worried when the CEO said “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” That’s not the person I want with access to my private information…

Looks like it’s time to start looking for alternatives to all things Google….

@martin, since you have admitted that you are not using gmail, you obviously don’t know what you are talking about.

Users of Gmail would know that in Buzz when you make a public post it is available in the public domain. You also have an option to make a private post which only allows the respective recipients to see it.

It is people like you who have very little to do with Google or ones who are negatively motivated are making the loudest noise.

All credit to Google, they have launched a nice product which enables a convenient way for social networking. Also, minor issues like auto following and email ids being displayed in case of replies, have already been taken care of.

In any case, the hue n cry over these minor issues was like making a mountain of a mole hill.

With the ability to share status updates content both video, audio and articles, Google could change Web 2.0 and create a service bringing real time in line with Youtube, Gmail, Blogger as well as integrating Twitter and Facebook to allow Social Networking to reach new levels

Reasons to use it: http://bit.ly/google-buzz-opinionated-debacle

I have the same issue as the lady. Why would you open doors to everyone? Is this a newspaper? Whoever handled privacy issues in this product?????

YES PLEASE PROVIDE “OPT-OUT” OPTION TO THOSE OF US WHO DO NOT NEED IT!

Yep, they screwed me the same way, too. They ended up granting a stalker access to my public profile, which allowed him to see all kinds of details I had successfully kept hidden for the last two years.

As a result (and even though I blocked him as soon as I figured out that it happened), I’ve already started receiving numerous calls at work again.

Thanks, Google!

I support and agree. I wish the whole world ( the slaves young and old ) could understand this and rose in protest. We could get back the varied and free internet as it was.

Can you/we start with a simple website on this line, please ?

Why is an actual feminist dissed as “self-proclaimed”? If someone runs an anti-racist blog, they’re not labeled as “self-proclaimed”. If someone runs a science blog, or a Christian blog, or a Shinto blog, they’re not “self-proclaimed”.

Go watch your rape porn and cry about it, Robin Wauters.

I don’t know if any of you have had a good look at what Facebook has done but their “privacy update” actually made heaps of information public including everyone’s photos unless you explicitly went through and removed those permissions.

wow…I was not even aware of that..

Auto Follow is a bad idea. I think they have turned it into Auto-Suggest. What I think the big problem is the fact that I know people who have lost their jobs for spending too much time at work social networking.

What happens when employers learn that Gmail is a social network? Will they fire people for using it during work?

How can techcrunch write an article about google buzz privacy, while they even expose someone privacy (the blog is protected now)???

- I do NOT have a google profile
- I have PRIVATE albums in picassa, which I share with my real world friends
- I use gmail to communicate with some of my ex-collegues

Now thanks to googles ‘buzz’ automatic following ‘feature’ :| my ‘personal’ albums in picassa are being shared with people I have not authorized (who are auto following me).

Because googles moto is to ‘Do NO Evil’ and because we trustED them with our data doesn’t mean that it would be ok to use us as guinea pigs for their great innovations.
Just back from vacation and now I have sit and fix a mess that google has auto-created for me, thanks a lot dumb asses !

Say it like you want and point the finger at Google or others how you want,

fact is you put something on the internet clearly marked as ‘public’ and the whole world can read it. Tadaah, welcome to the internet. All those social (networking) sites is basicly just putting up information about yourself to a wider audience. And pages like Twitter and Buzz are widely public, so everybody can read them. So don’t put up anything you don’t want to be publicly known. Look up the word public if you’re still hiding behind excuses.

They teach kids at school here about those sites and what it is to share information, and apparently we need to teach old people the same way. With the difference that little kids feel stupid after they feel the results of a public post, and apparently this woman is trying her hardest to put the blame somewhere else.

‘Following’ on Buzz just means they get automatic updates and notifications. The information you placed on there is public anyway. If you block someone they can always just ‘log out’ and view your public profile anyway. Make private posts if the content is not ment for the whole world to be known.

yes the albums were public but not easy to find even from search engines (even google), believe me I have checked. with buzz they just did a very good job aggregating and delivering it to the ‘auto-followers’ (read : random people I had exchanged email communication with in the past). Never the less its a well deserved lesson in privacy, just dont expect a thank you note yet.

Haven’t fiddled with Google Buzz

Sorry to hear that

you can totally delete your Buzz profile. go into the settings and delete it. (note, this doesn’t delete your google profile, just Buzz.)

you can make your Buzz posts private. you have to create a group of people that can see your posts.

Anyone willing to defend this MASSIVE invasion of privacy by Google is an avid drinker of the Google Kool-Aid and has no concept of the potential damage, both personally and professionally, caused by automatically opting users in to Buzz. I bet you think Google’s ultimate goal is solely to make your life better, isn’t it? Sheep.

Defense of Google’s unparalleled arrogance and lack of perspective of the world outside of the GooglePlex is an admission of complete ignorance and naivete by those willing to utter the nonsensical phrase, “No big deal. You’re all overreacting…”

I use GMail in both personal and business circumstances. Should all of my clients be made aware of all of my other clients’ contact information or their goings-on across the social web online? Should all of my colleagues – or anyone with whom I’ve corresponded via e-mail, for that matter – be made aware of my clients’ contact information or be privy to all of the other GMail users with whom I communicate? “Yeah, sorry, John Q. Client. I didn’t really violate our NDA, Google did…please sue them, rather than me.”

That is exactly what occurs when GMail users simply don’t realize the need to opt-out of an unwelcome and unsolicited attempt to create a social network composed of GMail users that you have e-mailed or have e-mailed you. Overreacting? Hardly…

I’m certain this woman’s experience is not unique and anyone who has dealt with, or known someone who has dealt with, an abusive situation understands the gravity of Google’s complete disregard for the mental and physical well-being of their users. Their defense? “We didn’t realize…”. Oh, well…okay then.

No. It’s not okay. Your job isn’t to just create software and technology solutions. Your job is to realize the impact that your “great ideas” have on people’s lives. Understand that your technological advancements can put people’s lives and businesses in jeopardy if you don’t fully comprehend the scope of these so-called “advancements”.

It is staggering that such a privacy violation can occur and that people are utterly unaware of what has transpired until it is far too late to do anything about it or mitigate the damage. By simply launching Google Buzz as an opt-IN service, rather than opting everyone in by default, all of the controversy, privacy invasion and potential danger to their at-risk users would have been avoided.

This is the latest in a long line of bonehead, egomaniacal, “we know best” moves from The Big G. And I’m certain it won’t be the last. They’ll learn nothing from the lives they’ve endangered. They’ll learn nothing from the business reputations and relationships put in jeopardy by their unmitigated gaul. Why won’t they learn? Because in order to learn from one’s mistakes, we must first be willing to admit we’ve made them. And we all know Google can’t admit they’ve made a mistake or that something that seemed like a great idea in theory turned out to be a massive and unadulterated disaster.

Kudos, Google…be sure to publish how many users delete their previously very useful Google profiles because that’s the only way to truly opt-out of Buzz. Yep, you read that right. You can’t truly opt-out of or disable Buzz unless you delete your Google Profile altogether.

You seem to be a member of the team which created this awful privacy problem.

classic! “Is this a newspaper?”

When did our personal relationships and events become a “drama” or “tv series” that could be displayed so guiltlessly and casually to -anyone-???

these companies that are starting to dominate the world must really re-assess about the important values of human communication!!

X_x

The safest thing to do is never share anything that you don't want other people to see.

Sure, especially if you're a stalker – that would make knowing everyone's real name on the web very *useful*, huh?

privacy is important online, my email address is rape off . too much spam email everyday.