Google Buzz Privacy Flaws Spark A Revamp (UPDATE)

UPDATE 2/12/2010 4:30PM: In light of privacy concerns, Google may separate Google Buzz from Gmail, Search Engine Land reports.

Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan spoke with Google's VP of Product Marketing, Bradley Horowitz:

Horowitz said Google is considering separating Buzz from Gmail, so that people can participate independently from email. The company might also allow people on Buzz to claim new names and redirect anyone seeking them at their old profiles to the new locations. Horowitz says Google also continues to look at ensuring search is a good way for people to locate the "right" people, as well.

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NEW YORK-- Google Buzz, the new social feature Google introduced to Gmail, has launched to bad buzz.

It's been described as a 'privacy nightmare' and been criticized for having 'a number of privacy flaws baked into it by design.'

A post by an outraged blogger helps capture the real life implications of the social networking feature. Fugitivus writes,

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There's a BIG drop-off between them and my other "most frequent" contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is? My abusive ex-husband.

She adds,

My privacy concerns are not trite. They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up. A few days is how long I expect it will take before you either knock this s**t off, or I delete every Google account I have ever had and use Bing out of f***ing spite.

In response to privacy concerns, Google says it has tweaked Buzz, the social hub it added to its e-mail service this week.

Users worried that Buzz made their frequent e-mail contacts visible to others. And it did so by automatically making these contacts their followers and followees on Buzz, and making these lists public.

On Facebook, that would be like having the people you e-mail with most often automatically become "friends." But those people may instead be your boss or ex-lover, and you wouldn't necessarily want to share everything with them.

So Google Inc. said Thursday it made it easier to hide the lists of followers and followees. It also made it easier to block specific people from following your Buzz updates.

Read a full description of the privacy changes on the official Google blog.

Concerned about staying private? Check out this guide to Google Buzz's privacy settings and tips on staying safe.

Comments

[nicainmiami]

05:41 PM on 02/15/2010

What are people complaining about?? It's Google! It does not evil! C'mon! You love "the GOOG"!

[JohnSawyer]

03:52 AM on 02/14/2010

Google Buzz appears to be a manifestation of the lame idea, "If you have nothing to be ashamed of, you shouldn't mind if we know everything about you", extended further--"If you have nothing to be ashamed of, you shouldn't mind us sharing many of those things we know about you, with everyone else on Earth." They're hoping we'll buy into that one day.

There's a weird disconnect in people who try to push these ideas, who don't understand that, from a child's view of the world, these ideas might make "sense", but in the real world, they don't, and not because people are trying to hide things they shouldn't, or that everyone else has some right to know.

[oddymac]

12:42 AM on 02/14/2010

if you don't think the folk running Google, and I'm not talking about them two young billionaires, but THE OTHER FOLKS aren't part of a conspiracy to monitor us you're insane! Thanks to Google America has become a tech police state. No need to have a chip in your a** to track you when your cell does the job just fine.

[ChicagoBob]

10:35 PM on 02/13/2010

Thanks for this information.
I just finished disabling every feature I could find.

Interestingly, Google had already listed some people as followers and others as people I was following. No logical reason for any of them as far as I could determine.

I know thee is no real privacy on the web, but I can try.

[MrVee]

01:59 PM on 02/13/2010

I think it is a good idea that Google separate the two because we all know we must keep our worlds apart. INDEPENDENT George must be kept separate from RELATIONSHIP George. Otherwise, WORLDS COLLIDE!! Doesn't Google know this?? A George, divided against itself, cannot stand!"

[norkas]

03:30 PM on 02/13/2010

Goggle is a nightmare in many ways and they care very little about privacy. When you use Google E-mail they pick up key words and then you see ads that reflect your private e -mails.

I am one of the people that hate the idea that someone can take my name and see where i live without my permission. It would of been better for mew to give permission to those who invite to my house to use google service to locate me. . Goggle pretends they really care and should care about the bottom line they are there to provide a service and make money. I like their search engine and truly believe they adjust when people speak up

I am happy people finally are speaking up and you will see Goggle making changes.

[mike72]

09:37 AM on 02/13/2010

100 years from now, people will ask us, "what were we thinking giving so much power to a private company?"

[LegalCodex]

12:42 PM on 02/13/2010

They should have been asking that when Google first came into primetime. If Google had started its operations today people would be throwing stones through their windows and torching the place.

[mike72]

09:36 AM on 02/13/2010

It sickens me to know that Gmail has built-in back doors for N*S.A to access account information at will, while Google is faking up their protest against China on "information freedom" and "hacking".

See ... if Gmail gives the same access to Chinese government like what they offer to N*S.A, there won't be any hacking, right?

It is so freaky lame.

[mrjames1]

01:23 AM on 02/13/2010

Great real world example provided in the article on 'buzz' privacy failures and nightmares

[Jonatan Cruz]

11:47 PM on 02/12/2010

Heads will be chop-off soon, Google buzz is worse than twitter in their beginnings.
Google do not understand that people do not want everyone knowing my email adress.
Computer-impaired people that don't even know what facebook is, like my mother, are buzzing.... now

[Sam Feuer]

10:51 PM on 02/12/2010

They will certainly remove it and make it its own brilliant entity.

[sinope]

10:34 PM on 02/12/2010

Great, I'm being followed by my parents, ex-girlfriends, college professors, and old landlords. In short, the people I've emailed a lot, no matter how long ago it was.

I turned off buzz... Molly Wood has an excellent article on it: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-10451428-256.html

[Balzac]

10:09 PM on 02/12/2010

There appears to be a policy of taking away people's privacy in mass disclosures of information which are not initiated by users. Richard Stallman is right about trusting others with your personal information.

I don't know all the political intrigue which is happening among others, but I'm definitely not thrilled by these repeated design failings in big web services. Overall, I appreciate Google and their services.

[wilray]

09:58 PM on 02/12/2010

Supposedly, Buzz usage is skyrocketing. Also, apparently you can buzz and tweet at the same time. Simultaneous peeing and pooping can't be far behind.

http://buzztweep.com/

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/google-buzz-gmail/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)

[CommonTator]

09:01 PM on 02/12/2010

I absolutely think a feature like that should be DISABLED by default.

It's a no-brainer.

Make the instructions for turning it on easy to find for the non-tech savvy. Done.

But if there's an outcry over this, then where's the outcry from these same people over things like dragnet surveillance of the communications of all innocent Americans?

Oh, wait.

They didn't claim that "Buzz" was created to protect them from an exploding hug.

Nevermind.

[patrickmcdougal]

08:18 PM on 02/12/2010

well aren't you special