Google Buzz

[karohemd]

Those of you who use Gmail were probably equally annoyed by the unwanted imposing new feature you had to click away before you could access your emails.
I had a quick look and didn't think it was anything exciting (or useful). raggedy_man has a good overview why here. Thankfully, I quickly discovered how to turn it off (it's at the bottom of the page, almost hidden).

Then this morning, I read this article about a serious privacy flaw and am I now glad I'd turned it off right away. Not that many people would look at my profile or that I'd had any important people in my contacts but it's a matter of principle.

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

annoyed by the unwanted imposing new feature you had to click away

Here, let me refund your fees for using gmail for the last month :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think everybody I know has reported the same reaction: "What's that? Piss off, I want my email". Maybe this will have some impact on its success.

[kizzie.livejournal.com]

I know it was my reaction...

[astatine210.livejournal.com]

I use Gmail over IMAP, so I've no idea what people are complaining about.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Ditto - sounds like I need to log in and tweak settings though, if it's defaulted to bein switched on....

[astatine210.livejournal.com]

Looks like it only gets switched on when you first set your profile up for it. It turns up in a fairly prominent checkbox the moment you try to do anything.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It's only an issue if you've created a Google Profile. For example, my profile (http://www.google.com/profiles/karohemd) isn't available.
Also, the Buzz list is only created the first time you use it so if you don't touch it, you should be fine.

[missdiane.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that google would put something on that had such a privacy risk - they're usually better than that.

Thanks for the tip on turning it off.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for that, I hadn't seen it yet but I shall go now and turn it off pre-emptively.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for pointing this out - I REALLY wish Google wouldn't roll stuff like this out with the default set to on.

[matgb]

See, I read the article about this supposed privacy flaw, and, well, I turned Buzz on when I logged into Gmail yesterday and that didn't happen to me, at all.

I was given a list of people I might like to follow, but it didn't auto follow any of them.

Given that most of them were local councillors as I have to do a lot of 'reply all' info sending, it's not as good as it could've been, but...

I kinda like the idea, and while I've no doubt there are privacy issues, this one doesn't appear to have as many legs as the scaremongering article suggests, that article was written after I signed up.

And one interstitial during login? Meh, less annoying than many sites, and one click to get past.

[themadone.livejournal.com]

I turned it on, but it didn't auto-follow anyone. It gave me a list of suggestions, but I just ignored them and I still have 0 people I'm following.