Google Buzz: Privacy And Surprise Should Not Be In The Same Sentence

A huge backfire for Buzz, based on the gaping loophole in privacy when Buzz exposes all sorts of things unexepectedly.

I mentioned that the Buzz model — which lets people who are in your email contact list see other contacts identities, and even exposes their email addresses — might cause problems for a lot of people, including people involved in an acrimonious divorce.

Via @xenijardin, I learned about Harriet Jacob’s ‘Fuck You, Google,’ post, where all of that happened to her. An ‘abusive’ ex, a boyfriend and mother, and a long list of strange characters that have emailed her via her anonymous blog, all thrown together in a Buzzing pile.

I can’t block these people, because I never made a Google profile or Buzz profile, due to privacy concerns (apparently and resoundingly founded!). Which doesn’t matter anyway, because every time I do block them, they are following me again in an hour. I’m hoping that they, like me, do not realize and are not intentionally following me, but that’s the optimistic half of the glass. My pessimistic half is of the abyss, and it is staring back at you with a redolent stink-eye.

Oh, yes, I suppose I could opt out of Buzz — which I did when it was introduced, though that apparently has no effect on whether or not I am now using Buzz — but as soon as I did that, all sorts of new people were following me on my Reader! People I couldn’t block, because I am not on Buzz!

Fuck you, Google. My privacy concerns are not trite. They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up. A few days is how long I expect it will take before you either knock this shit off, or I delete every Google account I have ever had and use Bing out of fucking spite.

Fuck you, Google. You have destroyed over ten years of my goodwill and adoration, just so you could try and out-MySpace MySpace.

Belatedly, Google is waking up to the problems here, and may create a divorce of its own: namely, breaking Buzz out of Gmail.

- Matt McGee, Search Engine Land

Google says it may end the marriage between Buzz and Gmail. That may be a welcome move from users of both products, especially in light of the substantial privacy concerns voiced this week about Google Buzz.

Danny Sullivan has spoken with Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Product Marketing, about some of the Buzz issues at the TED Conference. One key problem is that Buzz is linked with Gmail, causing some of the privacy issues being raised and also awareness about how brand owners deal with having their trademark terms being taken. (See The Giant Mess Of Mixing Gmail Addresses With Google Buzz/Profile Names on Buzz for more.) By linking Buzz to Gmail, Google effectively declared that a user’s email contact list is the same as a social network. For many users, that’s not the case. There are also posts today about how using Buzz can give away your Gmail address.

Horowitz said Google is considering separating Buzz from Gmail, so that people can participate independently from email. The company might also allow people on Buzz to claim new names and redirect anyone seeking them at their old profiles to the new locations. Horowitz says Google also continues to look at ensuring search is a good way for people to locate the “right” people, as well.

Bradley’s a friend, and some deep thinking has gone into Buzz, but this is a huge mess, and breaking it out and hitting reset is probably the best course we can hope for at this point.

Update on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 9:23AM by Stowe Boyd  

Now it appears that Google WON’T be pulling Buzz out of Gmail after all althought they have been in direct contact with Jacobs:

via DigitalBeat

The company is not removing Buzz from Gmail, according to Victoria Katsarou, a Google spokesperson. She says the company is looking at creating a “standalone” Buzz site that people can access independently. That would come on top of Buzz inside Gmail.