Google Buzz Privacy Issues Have Real Life Implications. Merging something designed for public broadcasting (Buzz) with something inherently private (Gmail) was just looking for trouble.
Google is -deservedly – getting a lot of heat for the fact that its latest social product has a number of privacy flaws baked into it by design. They’ve since made some improvements to the product, but that’s not where the story ends. Some people think the complaints are unwarranted and the issues not all that bad, while some think it’s mostly annoying and others don’t even know there are issues yet (or that Google launched something new at all). And then there those whose lives are already being impacted by the privacy loopholes in Google Buzz – and not all in a good way. See for example this story of an anonymous woman who writes a (self-proclaimed) feminist blog, which she started after leaving an abusive marriage. Hint: the title is ‘Fuck you, Google’. An excerpt: Now, I’m sure some of our readers will have an answer ready. Expect more stories like this. Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback. Posted by Todd Jackson, Product Manager, Gmail and Google Buzz It's been just two days since we first launched Google Buzz.
Since then, tens of millions of people have checked Buzz out, creating over 9 million posts and comments. Plus, we're seeing over 200 posts per minute from mobile phones around the world. We've had plenty of feature requests, and some direct feedback. In particular there's been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular the lists of people they follow, and the people following them). Like Gmail's chat service, Buzz helps you create a social network by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with most. So here is some more information about how Buzz works, and some immediate improvements we are making today based on your feedback. 1. 2. 3. Wrong kind of buzz around Google Buzz.
The launch of Google Buzz has set various parts of the technology blogosphere afire -- and for all the right reasons: it does introduce a number of interesting social features that could make our email experience more social (whether it has to be more social is a different question).
However, what tech pundits have mostly overlooked is a peculiar privacy choice made by Google's designers: unless you tinker with Buzz's settings, a partial list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts might be automatically made public (see this post over at Silicon Alley Insider; it appears that contacts those who already had a Google Profile account before Buzz are at risk; also see this excellent and very angry post at CNet for additional background.
UPDATE: Google has promised to fix some of these problems). This could be an extremely uncomfortable and tragic privacy disaster for Google, potentially of the same magnitude that Beacon was toFacebook. LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Image. Privacy group files FTC complaint against Google Buzz. Despite making significant changes to its Buzz social networking service (and apologizing), Google still can't shake the ire of privacy critics.
The electronic privacy information group has now filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Comission (FTC) over Buzz, asking the FTC to step in and require Google to make Buzz a "fully opt-in service" and to "cease using Gmail users' private address book contacts to compile social networking lists". (via LA Times). Epic says that while Google has turned off an "auto-follower" feature, so that users now have to manually approve the people whose updates they follow, the company is still making suggestions based on who users contact the most. "Google Buzz still allows people to automatically follow a user," the foundation says. "The burden remains on the user to block those unwanted followers.
" (In a statement, Google says: "Buzz was launched only a week ago.