Google Buzz: Has Your Privacy Been Violated?

[vangogh]

You may have heard that earlier this week Google began rolling out Google Buzz, which is its latest attempt to become a social networking destination. If you have a Gmail account then you have Google Buzz.

Other than letting you know it exists, I wanted to start this thread for a couple of reasons. First is to get your opinions on Buzz if you've used it or heard of it and second to let you know how to turn it off.

You can probably guess how I feel about it based on the subject line of this thread. Be prepared for a rant.

How to turn off Google Buzz:
Log into your Gmail account. If you have Buzz you should see a link to it in the left hand navigation. I think it will be right above your inbox. You can turn it off by scrolling down to the bottom of any page in you Gmail and look for the link in the footer that says 'Turn Off Buzz' I think it's on every page, but if not you can click the Buzz link and look at the bottom of the page.

If you do click the Buzz link you'll see a list of people Google recommends you follow. These will be all the people you've emailed with your Gmail account who also have Gmail accounts.

As for opinions on Buzz I can't really give you one. I turned it off as soon as I learned how. I think it's an invasion of privacy the way Google is recommending people that email each other. Not only do you see recommendations to connect with people you've emailed, they see you as being recommended.

Anyone who has a public Google profile will then show you listed and if your profile is public, it's essentially a list of all the people you email through your Gmail account who also have Gmail.

I also don't care for the way Google automatically assumes I want to be part of Buzz just because I have an email account. With social network sites like Twitter and Facebook you get to decide if you want to join. With Google Buzz you're not given that choice.

From what I understand there will be ways to set up public and private groups and public and private messages within Buzz, but given Google's history I see no reason to think all your private communication won't find its way into the public at some point in the future.

Even were I not to object to the above privacy issues I wouldn't find Buzz useful since you have to access it through the web based Gmail. I pull my Gmail into Thunderbird and never actually login to Gmail online. At best the people I email would likely be insulted by my never responding to them.

One last point for my particularly case is my Gmail account is one I only use for private communication with a small group of people. I generally have no need for communicating with more than one of them at a time and email is perfectly suitable for that communication.

I really have 0 use for Buzz on my one Gmail account and don't appreciate Google automatically signing me up for it. I may have to rethink using Gmail at all.

Anyway that's my admittedly very one-sided view. Am I wrong to feel the way I do? Are you planning on using Buzz or excited by it? Did you even know it exists and that you're already a member?

[KristineS]

I've seen it on my Gmail account, but have not accessed it and probably won't. I feel like you do. I have Twitter and Facebook through which I can connect with people, and the people I e-mail are people I ever need to transact business with or those with whom I want to have a more indepth conversation. I don't see any need for Buzz and, quite frankly, I'm not sure why everyone is making such a fuss over it.

Now that you've told me how to turn it off, I most likely will unless I can see some value to it that I don't presently see.

[vangogh]

If you see the link in your Gmail account then your information is already being shared. To me this isn't about how useful Buzz may or may not be, it's that by default you're signed up and Google is going through your contacts and email to recommend people that you should follow and recommend to others that they should follow you.

Ultimately it makes it not too difficult for others to see all the people you email.

They've turned your private list of contacts into something public without your permission.

Here's a story of a woman who's now concerned about her personal safety. The person who she emailed the most was an abusive ex-husband. Naturally that was in the past. But since he was the most frequent contact in her Gmail account Google is now sharing other aspects of her Google account with the ex-husband and his friends.

I can't link directly to the article since it uses a word in the url that the forum is blocking

hxxp://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/f-you-google/

Replace hxxp with http and change f-you to...well you can probably figure it out.

[Paper Shredder Clay]

While I agree I feel that they breech our privacy, I'm sure there's some clause in your google/gmail agreement that granted them permission to.

Personally I don't like it, they have to work on quite a few things before it's ready to be unveiled, which is now too late. I like to follow Mashable and Kevin Rose, but they have a ton of people who comment on their posts and Google has yet to have a way to minimize comments so its a pain to scroll through the topics.

I'm happy with Twitter. I only use Facebook to keep in contact with friends but do not use their applications.

I like things simple. If Google had done it right, they would have allowed the person to enter the email addresses of those they wanted to follow. I already have spammer's following my buzz. I have blocked them too.

Google is getting way way too powerful, come on, they know more about us, than we know about ourselves plus they want to keep track of your location, that's too much, that's why I turn off geolocation on my iPhone when I log into Google.

[billbenson]

VG, why do you use gmail at all? I can see why certain people use it, but you don't seem to fit into that category. Or is it just that you needed the account for other services and don't really use it for day to day email?

[vangogh]

I'm sure there's some clause in your google/gmail agreement that granted them permission to.

Probably true, but I think it's besides the point. Just because a company can do something doesn't make it right. Plus it's possible the privacy issues here violate Google's own privacy policy.

A lot of people have been complaining and it seems it's reached a high enough level where Google is beginning to listen. They may change Buzz into a stand alone product that can be integrated with Gmail if you want, but can be used without as well. They're trying to spin it as lots of non Gmail users wanting to use Buzz, but can't because they don't have Gmail. More likely is all the negative comments that have been floating around.

Assuming they do offer the standalone the question still remains if the default settings will be the same if you do want to integrate with Gmail. There are plenty of other things people have complained about the system as well. It also may turn out to be too little too late for many.


VG, why do you use gmail at all? I can see why certain people use it, but you don't seem to fit into that category.

Why wouldn't I fit the category? Is there a reason I shouldn't have a Gmail account? I have accounts with Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail. I have accounts with all the domains I own too. They each have different uses.

For example I prefer to use the freebies in my personal life and the domains in my professional life. Sometimes the two end up overlapping. It's nice to have the free email accounts in case I ever change domains. My current domain is the 3rd one I've used for my primary business. I wouldn't want to have to update every part of my life because I decide to move to a new domain.

This way I also have email on a variety of servers and not just the one for my business.

Just curious, but why do you think some people shouldn't or wouldn't use free email like Gmail?

[billbenson]

For business, I think free emails give a feeling of "unprofessional" although gmail is used by a lot of business people. If I get an order from a domain account by email, I take it more seriously than hotmail.

Take aol for example. The email / ISP side of their business isn't profitable and the profitable side has been sold off. I wonder if some of the longtime aol email holders have the risk of loosing their historical information, address books etc or at least need to reenter them. The ability to use xxx at aol.com could possibly go away so people may loose their email address that everybody has.

Using domain based emails also gives me complete control on filtering, domains, different domains for different purposes etc.

Having said that, I really haven't used a free account in years. I think now they can be integrated into your email applications and probably have a lot more features that I'm not aware of. There may be a lot more reasons to use them than I'm aware of.

[vangogh]

Oh I understand what you're saying now. I agree you shouldn't use free email accounts for business. My Gmail account was only for personal use. There have been times when it crossed into business, for example when my server was down and it was the only way to communicate. But in those cases it was with an existing client and never for more than a day or so.

I don't like using my business email for personal use, in part because my domain could change or my server could be having problems. So I use free accounts for personal use and domain based accounts for business use.

It's also one reason Buzz is completely useless to me on my Gmail account. I don't have any need to use a social network to connect with the people in my personal life. Most of them I can visit in person or talk to on the phone. And when I do need to communicate with them through writing, email is the far better solution.

[vangogh]

Just an update, but Google may not be separating Buzz from Gmail. There seems to be conflicting reports coming from Google sources on the matter.

And one more reason why this was a bad idea. In some cases when you reply to someone's buzz using the @method of reply you could be publicly displaying their private email address over the web. Here's the story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/12/AR2010021200130.html)

Spammers must be loving all the new email addresses they're now able to harvest.

[dynocat]

For business, I think free emails give a feeling of "unprofessional" although gmail is used by a lot of business people. If I get an order from a domain account by email, I take it more seriously than hotmail.

Take aol for example. The email / ISP side of their business isn't profitable and the profitable side has been sold off. I wonder if some of the longtime aol email holders have the risk of loosing their historical information, address books etc or at least need to reenter them. The ability to use xxx at aol.com could possibly go away so people may loose their email address that everybody has.

Using domain based emails also gives me complete control on filtering, domains, different domains for different purposes etc.

Having said that, I really haven't used a free account in years. I think now they can be integrated into your email applications and probably have a lot more features that I'm not aware of. There may be a lot more reasons to use them than I'm aware of.

Gmail can be set up under your domain name so your email does look professional. That's the beauty of it. It's often recommended by users for those web hosts whose email system is less than perfect. If you want your email coming to your computer rather than reading it online you can do that too.

[vangogh]

Gmail can be set up under your domain name so your email does look professional

This may have changed, but the last time I tried that Gmail showed my domain in the From or Sender field of the email, but the actual email still went through my Gmail account. All replies went back to my Gmail account and it was a simple matter for anyone to find out the address of that account. It was a flawed system at best.

Again that may have changed since I last tried, but it was essentially Google revealing a private email address that I didn't authorize them to. The system was very different than what I was led to believe.

Besides even if it did work well, there's no reason every one of my emails needs to or should pass through a Google server on its way to its destination.