Disabling Google Buzz: How to purge your profile
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
On a side note, as I was purging my lists today, I found that Picasa had magically been re-added to the list of my shared sites after I explicitly removed it yesterday morning. What is going on here?
Aaarrrgh!
That's the last time I 'try out' a Google product. From now on I test their crap on a junk account that I'll create in GMail.
Thanks a lot Google...
No...not really.
Jack@$$es!
For you (and others like you and I who picked 'no'), clicking 'turn off buzz' does seem to actually turn off the service for all intents and purposes. No info is made public. Sure, some people 'auto-follow' me, but only those who already had your email address. No real harm done.
I don't care if it was made public. If I had a profile, and it was made public, that would not have made things better. That would be worse. I should not need to understand the subtle privacy interplay of several different and seemingly unrelated Google products just because I use one of them (Gmail).
I entirely agree with this, although I'll point out that IIRC Google Chat did the same thing in terms of modifying gmail but no-one seemed to really object to that. Buzz seems to be different because of the privacy issues, i.e. Google didn't communicate well what would happen (specifically a public profile that included your follower/followee lists) if you clicked "yes". That there's a new link on the left-hand menu can't really be the main issue, is it?
As far as FUD, I'm specifically referring to comments like this:
There is absolutely no way to opt out of Buzz.
http://twitter.com/etherial/status/9023625277
It IS possible to opt out of Buzz, ~ its just that its counter-intuitive and once you've hit the "Yes" button, somewhat difficult to undo.
Because in combination with the default of having your follow list public, that exposes who you've been emailing to the world.
[ crap = something that just lies there and the reasonably alert can choose to step over ]
I'm even more confused as I read more, because it's inconsistent with what I'm seeing, and the reports from other people are inconsistent with each other, making me think there's perhaps some A/B testing going on
[Edit: figured it out. Buzz was enabled for both myself and my wife. I'm pretty cross about this. To me it's a flagrant breach of trust. Imagine what would happen if Apple or Microsoft pulled a stunt like this]
If I can't pound ten beers in an hour and still understand your privacy policy, it's too complicated.
I'm going to leave it enabled. I'm aware that it's public, and I'll just make sure to treat it as such. It seems unlikely that I'll publish any content other than syndicating my Twitter feed (much like LinkedIn), and all of that information is public already.
My life on the web is open to everyone, and that paradigm isn't going anywhere.
I think the problem that most people are having is that Google is blurring the line between our lives on the web and our lives in our inboxes. Specifically, it seems that auto-follow is particularly offensive because who we frequently email might not be who we want to include in our social networking sites.
In the Edit Profile section, looks like "Display the list of people I'm following and people following me" is enabled by default.
To me it is a value proposition: what are the advantages of a service vs. disadvantages like privacy issues. I choose to use most of Google's services, occasionally use Facebook, and I am sort-of addicted to following people who I consider to be "thought leaders" on Twitter.
Also, my early take on Buzz: it is OK, but I have an attitude that I don't have to read everything that shows up on my Buzz list. Same as Twitter.
I have also started to sometimes do short tweets on Twitter, and maybe following up with something more detailed on Buzz.
There are two things I see people getting frustrated about with Buzz.
1. It makes your name public and therefore allows people to search for you.
2. It's an unnecessary distraction.
If you are bothered by (1), then you are little out of the loop with regards to the state of privacy on the Internet in general. Basically, you need to get used to having your name out there. If you are bothered by (2) then you can turn it off.
1) It is opt-out rather than opt-in.
2) It automatically decides to auto-follow people for you.
3) Many people are complaining about privacy settings not 'sticking' (i.e. disabling things only for the to end up as re-enabled later)
Personally, if I use Gmail as my email client, why am I all of the sudden forced to be a member of Buzz?
The worst part? Google is touting that 'millions of people have signed into Buzz' as some sort of 'See? People like the service!' response to the criticisms. But THE SERVICE IS OPT-OUT! So when I sign into Gmail and it prompts me with "Learn more about Buzz/No thanks, go to inbox," neither of those options disables Buzz. So Google has forced millions of people to log into Buzz, then used the fact that millions of people have logged into Buzz as validation for forcing them to log into Buzz.
{edit} I don't usually post 'people are excusing X company' crap, but in this case I really feel that people are excusing Google from this behavior. It's the same crap that people rail against Microsoft for: leveraging your current userbase to gain a foothold in another market. What is the difference between forcing all Gmail users to become GoogleBuzz members/users and forcing all Windows users to become Internet Explorer users?
It just seems like there are a lot of people saying, "Hey! I find this interesting, so I'll ignore anything negative associated with it!"
It only appears to make your name public if you have a public profile. I logged into my other gmail account and tried to search for my main one from buzz and couldn't find myself, because I don't have profiles set up for either accounts.