Google Buzz -- and you thought Facebook had privacy issues?

blogs.computerworld.com

9 points·aresant··7 comments

I made a "hello world" sort of buzz post as soon as I got it a few days ago. Last night I looked at my public google profile (http://www.google.com/profiles/<username>) and was shocked to see that my buzz post was shown on there. Yes, I allowed that first post to be "public", but its not immediately clear how public that actually is. I had assumed that it meant public to all of my buzz followers but apparently it meant public to the entire world.

The meaning of public on any social network nowadays pretty much always means public to the entire world.

So the author opts-in to share her location information, then complains that Google is compromising her privacy when Buzz uses that information?

It's a fair point though that the accuracy of your location made public is too much.

Not only did the author opt-in, there's also a way to opt-out. There's a big X next to the location on the compose form. Clicking the X removes the location.

I'm still waiting to get Buzz enabled so I'm not sure on this, but is there an option for per 'buzz' use of location data? I could see good use for the odd occasion of "meet me here" message with the data added. Even better if it knew the recipients location and they could be provided with a route on how to get there!

The url itself is quite odd (firefox instead of facebook).

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