Haha, I was actually wondering about this. I assumed it was just a video that started playing in the background, but I wasn't able to find it. Nice to know what it actually was.
Wow, this is more annoying than when a blocked popup in chrome still fully loads and starts playing a video.
What's with Google this past year or so? This is just the latest in a series of poorly executed, or just plain dumbass, rollouts. Is there no adult supervision at the googleplex?
I got burned so badly from Google Buzz, I don't rush to try any new product they roll out, and that has stood me in good stead lately. Shame, because they made so much great stuff at first. Frankly, if I could find the person responsible for the Buzz privacy choices, I'd happily beat him senseless.
Oh fascinating, you openly admit to wanting to do physical violence to someone who made a change to a service you undertook to use freely and without coercion. Seems immoral to me but your mileage obviously varies.
I'm not down with the beating senseless part, but I would say that by making a service "free" they don't get to be sloppy or negligent with privacy. There's still a duty of care, as the lawyers say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_of_care