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Silly article, IMHO. Main reason: if you are really caught up in the privacy issue, don't use Google (signed in), Facebook, etc. Also, strongly control what cookies you want to allow.

To me it is a value proposition: what are the advantages of a service vs. disadvantages like privacy issues. I choose to use most of Google's services, occasionally use Facebook, and I am sort-of addicted to following people who I consider to be "thought leaders" on Twitter.

Also, my early take on Buzz: it is OK, but I have an attitude that I don't have to read everything that shows up on my Buzz list. Same as Twitter.

I have also started to sometimes do short tweets on Twitter, and maybe following up with something more detailed on Buzz.

1 comments

It really is ridiculous. Seems Facebook is much worse when it comes to doing things you don't ask it to.

There are two things I see people getting frustrated about with Buzz.

1. It makes your name public and therefore allows people to search for you.

2. It's an unnecessary distraction.

If you are bothered by (1), then you are little out of the loop with regards to the state of privacy on the Internet in general. Basically, you need to get used to having your name out there. If you are bothered by (2) then you can turn it off.

How about:

1) It is opt-out rather than opt-in.

2) It automatically decides to auto-follow people for you.

3) Many people are complaining about privacy settings not 'sticking' (i.e. disabling things only for the to end up as re-enabled later)

Personally, if I use Gmail as my email client, why am I all of the sudden forced to be a member of Buzz?

The worst part? Google is touting that 'millions of people have signed into Buzz' as some sort of 'See? People like the service!' response to the criticisms. But THE SERVICE IS OPT-OUT! So when I sign into Gmail and it prompts me with "Learn more about Buzz/No thanks, go to inbox," neither of those options disables Buzz. So Google has forced millions of people to log into Buzz, then used the fact that millions of people have logged into Buzz as validation for forcing them to log into Buzz.

{edit} I don't usually post 'people are excusing X company' crap, but in this case I really feel that people are excusing Google from this behavior. It's the same crap that people rail against Microsoft for: leveraging your current userbase to gain a foothold in another market. What is the difference between forcing all Gmail users to become GoogleBuzz members/users and forcing all Windows users to become Internet Explorer users?

It just seems like there are a lot of people saying, "Hey! I find this interesting, so I'll ignore anything negative associated with it!"

You totally disregarded the main points I made.

1. It makes your name public and therefore allows people to search for you.

It only appears to make your name public if you have a public profile. I logged into my other gmail account and tried to search for my main one from buzz and couldn't find myself, because I don't have profiles set up for either accounts.