Thursday, February 11, 2010

Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare

To hide the list of followers/followees from your profile page, you have to click Edit Profile and uncheck the box next to Display the list of people I'm following and people following me. Why that option isn't obvious on the Buzz page itself--well, decide for yourself.

On top of that, let's say you've customized your Google profile page with the vanity URL Google helpfully offers at the bottom of the page. Well, that'd be your e-mail handle. Anytime anyone does an @ reply to you, they've broadcast your e-mail address to the world.

Now, I know Gmail is in fairly wide use in business environments, but it's also most commonly used for personal e-mail. We've gotten comfortable with handing out usernames of all stripes across social networks, but the personal e-mail address used to be somewhat sacred--until Google Buzz came along.

Plus, and maybe this is specious, but it really bugged me: when I enabled Google Buzz, it was using a photo on my personal Buzz page (not my profile or anything) that I'd taken on my Droid but hadn't ever uploaded. Why? And why that photo? And--what? That's just creepy as hell.

But it's less creepy than the mobile privacy. I will say, thank goodness, at least Google Buzz doesn't opt you in to this creepiest feature of all: revealing your location by exact address. When you first visit the mobile app on your Android phone and attempt to post something, you'll be asked whether you want to Share Location or Decline. The "Remember this Preference" box is prechecked too, so be sure you're ready to have everyone know right where you are, whenever you post to Buzz. At minimum, uncheck the Remember button so you can decide whether to reveal your location post by post.

Source : http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-10451428-256.html

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