Privacy Issues with Google Buzz: Problems and Solutions

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Privacy issues with Google Buzz

From EdBennett: Here's a good explanation of the Google Buzz privacy problem - http://bit.ly/9zX65M and how to disable the service and fully delete all traces of it: http://bit.ly/9gWODp

Some people don't like Google Buzz at all and I see their point...

A relative example: EdBennett's tweet: "I've just turned off Buzz - unfollowed / blocking everyone on the list. Take no offense, I just want to start fresh and get a handle on it."

Reference: Buzz off: Disabling Google Buzz - CNET http://goo.gl/ViDG - This seems to be a big deal for a lot of people. Privacy is paramount of course.

Please have in mind that just by your presence on the web (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), you give up a lot of your privacy. It's important to put things in perspective and have a clear long term perspective, acknowledging most other alternative view points.

@timoreilly: From a discussion of Google Buzz. Samuel Johnson: "Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome."

Based on the feedback, the Google Buzz team worked around the clock and made the privacy control options clearer:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-buzz-start-up-experience-based-on.html



Updates quickly clutter interface

The current interface of Google Buzz is not made to follow a large number of users. One alternative would be to subscribe to the RSS feeds of the respective Google profiles and channel those through Google Reader. I already do that for many Twitter users with high number of daily updates.

Comments from my Google Buzz stream

Lakshman Swamy - "Privacy" is a vague term. For me, Buzz has privacy problems not because I am trying to hide what I am doing, but because my professional contacts probably don't want to see a stream of mundane/unrelated content from my end (personal), and vice versa. For me, I have distinctions between personal, professional, and academic interests. I would imagine similar issues exist for anyone that has more than a single purpose on the web.

Similarly, Buzz has too little structure. Right now, it is very much all or none, which makes for a tough decision when I'm following people like you who have prolific (and interesting) updates mixed in with personal friends who have much less often but equally (personally) interesting updates. Moreover, I end up seeing duplicate information in Buzz & Reader. I'm sure they'll devise better communication between those, though.

It is a fundamental problem: how do I share something I think is interesting to one group of people but not another, when both groups are following me? I guess using google groups is vaguely a solution...or I could just make multiple accounts!