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. 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. Why? And why that photo? And-what? That's just creepy as hell.īut it's less creepy than the mobile privacy. 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. 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. Now, I know Gmail is in fairly wide use in business environments, but it's also most commonly used for personal e-mail. Anytime anyone does an reply to you, they've broadcast your e-mail address to the world.
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.
Why that option isn't obvious on the Buzz page itself-well, decide for yourself. 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. It's available with helpful "follow" links too-wow, you can expand your Buzz network so fast by harvesting the personal contact lists of other people! When you visit Google Buzz, you're invited to "Try Buzz in Gmail," with "no setup needed." But the no-setup thing isn't the bonus you might be led to believe.įirst, you automatically follow everyone in your Gmail contact list, and that information is publicly available in your profile, by default, to everyone who visits your profile. Would it have killed you to add a "configure" step to this process? That, right there, is bad behavior, and given all the hue and cry about Facebook's inexorable attempts to expose everything about its users to the entire world, Google ought to know better. I do not, however, like a product that bursts through my door like a tornado and opts me in to wanton in-box clutter and spam (or, more precisely, bacn) publicly reveals my personal contact list without asking me, threatens to broadcast my e-mail address anytime someone wants to me in a Buzz, and even appears to grab photos off my Android phone that I've never uploaded. See, I love the idea of neat new tech innovations that lead to streamlined communication, real-time updating, in-line video and photo posting, and supersimple friend and contact integration. Those seven people are really important to me. I, for one, have already opted out of the entire endeavor. I know some of the technorati are losing their minds over the awesomeness that is Google Buzz, but I think that Google's making a lot of Facebook's privacy and opt-in mistakes right out of the gate, and it's going to bite it big-time, if it doesn't fix it pronto.
0 kommentar(er)
