A Simple Solution to Google Buzz’s Privacy Problem

By  |  Friday, February 12, 2010 at 2:57 pm

The hubbub over Google Buzz’s conversion of your most frequent e-mail contacts into followers that anyone can see may die down eventually. Right now, though, it feels like the controversy is still heading towards the boiling point. And I think that Buzz’s basically confusing design isn’t helping matters.

If Search Engine Land has its facts straight–which it generally does–Google may end the melodrama decisively by simply removing Buzz from Gmail. That would be kind of stunning, since its integration into Gmail was one of the key features that Google trumpeted back on Tuesday when it announced Buzz. But stranger things have happened.

[UPDATE: Search Engine Land has updated its story, and says it didn’t mean to suggest that Horowitz said Google was considering completely detaching Buzz from Gmail over privacy concerns.]

I think it would be a shame if Google went that far, and I don’t see why Buzz can’t be a good citizen within the Gmail framework. The company has already fiddled with Buzz’s default settings a bit. But can’t it end the Buzz discontent immediately by making it a cakewalk to simply skip the conversion of e-mail contacts into followers in the first place? Make Buzz accounts start with you following nobody by default; allow the e-mail contact conversion as an option, with an excruciatingly clear explanation of what’s happening.

Do that, Google, and you could confidently tell the world that the default state of Buzz is privacy. And virtually everyone who made their most-contacted list public would be doing so intentionally.

 
6 Comments


Read more: , ,

1 Comments For This Post

  1. James Katt Says:
    February 13th, 2010 at 10:18 am

    I TURNED OFF BUZZ.

5 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. Gmail Controversies: 2010 Isn’t 2004 All Over Again Says:
    February 12th, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    […] think that Google can make some fairly minor (additional) changes to Buzz that would instantly satisfy almost everybody. And I hope it does, rather than trying to ride this out. Because the people who are upset now are […]

  2. This Dumb Year: The 57 Lamest Tech Moments of 2010 Says:
    December 21st, 2010 at 1:33 am

    […] Gmail users’ contact lists into social networks. It runs into immediate flack from users who don’t want their contacts to be made social or public. The company moves quickly but it takes several passes of fixes before the controversy dies down. […]

  3. This Dumb Year: The 57 Lamest Tech Moments of 2010 | Hot Electronics Trends Says:
    December 23rd, 2010 at 7:26 am

    […] Gmail users’ contact lists into social networks. It runs into immediate flack from users who don’t want their contacts to be made social or public. The company moves quickly but it takes several passes of fixes before the controversy dies down. […]

  4. FTC Smacks Down Google Over Privacy Issues With Buzz Says:
    March 30th, 2011 at 9:51 am

    […] being opted in to something when we’ve explicitly said we want out (Harry kind of said this in a post last year). That’s pretty much how Buzz operated at first.   Comments are closed […]

  5. Google Giving ‘Buzz’ the Axe - Techland - TIME.com Says:
    October 14th, 2011 at 10:53 am

    […] to sleep sometime in the next few weeks. Google Buzz was launched in February of 2010, immediately ran into trouble for opting every Gmail user into the service, and ended up paying out an $8.5 million settlement […]