Google launched Google Buzz a week ago Tuesday, and since then it’s been spreading around the Internet with blinding speed. All the blogs now have these “Follow us on Google Buzz!” banners, touting its “Inbox Integration” and adding little “Buzz This!” buttons next to their “Tweet This!” and “Facebook The Hell Out Of This Shit!” buttons.
Very quickly, though, privacy concerns started popping up all over the place. Google Buzz was on by default and tightly integrated with GMail. Google viewed this as a big bonus:
You have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.
Somehow, it didn’t occur to Google that email is a private space, and that not everybody is “friends” with the people they email the most. More importantly, people email their lawyers, confidential sources, exes, doctors, etc. Amazingly, Google didn’t think it would be a problem to seed a social network with these contacts.
A scary example of the consequences, and what Google is furiously trying to do about it, after the jump.
A scary example of the consequences:
I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is. My abusive ex-husband.
Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.
The Times goes into more detail about the specific issues and Google’s reaction, alternately “it’s not a big deal” and “we’re working on it.” They’ve addressed some of the issues, but not to many critics’ satisfaction.
Google has a history of being tone-deaf to privacy concerns. When they first launched GMail, it didn’t have a delete button. They figured with all the storage they were giving you, there would no longer be a reason to ever delete an email. Why not just keep everything? Of course, actual humans delete emails for reasons other than lack of storage—they delete embarrassing emails, incriminating emails, spam, etc. Google didn’t think people would mind having a permanent archive of their mail on servers they didn’t control with no way to get rid of anything.
Shockingly, this turned out to be wrong.
Google is the biggest media company in the world, and well on its way to becoming one of the biggest companies in the world, period, yet they still see themselves as a benevolent little startup that everyone trusts implicitly. They get a ton of mileage out of their “Don’t Be Evil” slogan, and the Google Buzz situation is more evidence of how much they actually believe it.
The problem is that Google applies this slogan internally to their intentions and their plans, and is often blind to the possible results in real world. The founders are so dedicated to changing the world, that they spend little time worrying about whether the world wants to be changed. Google does have good intentions, to a fault.
They release things before they’re ready and tinker as they go because that’s what they’ve always done, but they’re not able to see that holding so much personal and private information about so many millions of people makes this a very dangerous strategy. Slapping “beta” on a product can no longer absolve them of responsibility anymore than Toyota could have gotten away with calling their braking system a beta.
Google’s products have massive and serious real-world implications for millions of people all over the world. Now that they have finally realized it, Google engineers are now furiously re-engineering Google Buzz to address the flood of privacy concerns since its launch.
The Official GMail blog explains that they’ve changed from an auto-follow model to an auto-suggest model, so it will suggest people you may want to follow rather than sign you up automatically.
Other changes include not automatically sharing your activity on Picasa or Google Reader, and adding a big, honking off switch to your GMail settings that will actually turn Google Buzz off, not just hide it from view.
All good things, but with many people the damage has likely already been done. Of course many others have never heard of Buzz yet and will find it with the privacy controls it should have had from the beginning.
We quickly realized that we didn’t get everything quite right. We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We’ll continue to do so.
Great post exploring these important issues. It really angers me to see them fucking with their customers like this. Although I suppose Google is free to the end user, and one does get what one pays for…
“Don’t Be Evil” – unless… ah screw it. Be evil. Be REALLY evil.
Oh and thanks for the article by the way.
This is a very important post – remember kids, because you love the ease of apps remembering your info, that’s also the biggest risk.
I felt like the people it auto-connected me with, and then suggested I connect with, were all folks I regularly make contact with. And all those I’ve only emailed a couple times or whatever – they weren’t added. So I was happy there. And if someone is following me but I’m not following them, and I’d like to block them specifically, I can! So maybe I’m missing something (I don’t really use reader that much), but I’m pretty fine with how this has been handled.
I just wish Google had a huge red button that said, “turn this buzz crap off”. I don’t care about the privacy stuff (Google has already screwed that pooch), I just want to stop seeing my friends inane crap showing up in my inbox.
I do find it hilarious that this chick, at the end of that Engadget blog post you linked to (which is read by millions), has no problems broadcasting her name, her website, her age, her race, her employment status, her occupation, her geographic location, and a mini-history of her pathos, all the while complaining about her privacy being fisted by the corporate scoundrels at Google. Last week I blocked everyone, unfollowed everyone, deleted my profile, and then turned off Buzz, but now I’m jumping back in full force just to spite this sanctimonious git.
Ehh… just because someone wears a bikini to the beach doesn’t mean they want their boss to have photos of them in their underwear. Obviously you don’t get a do over if your boss shows up at the same beach, but knowing the risks involved you make an informed decision.
People have a right to make those choices for themselves, and I can see how the Buzz setup retroactively changes some of the rules that people had previously felt comfortable with.
What I’m trying to say is sometimes a dude likes to wear a bikini and stay out of my business, google.
I use my Gmail account for more serious purposes: business, job searches, etc… and all of my personal stuff is done elsewhere, so my Buzz was populated with the exact people I wouldn’t want there. I definitley didn’t want my old Apple recruiter or my manager at work to have access to my shit. Thanks, Google!
In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t email anybody for personal reasons AT ALL. That stuff is all done via text, IM or Facebook. I can’t be alone there and you’d think Google would have thought of that.
Just fucking block those people, DemonJuice. It’s really not that hard. Unfollow. Block.
And Graham, it’s not your inbox. Unless your settings are weird.
Yeah, I realize that, but fuck Google for making me do so.
Gmail wanted to automatically show everybody who my anonymous sources are. Fortunately, I caught it.
Did I just imagine the big splash screen that showed up giving me the option to opt out of Buzz when I logged into my gmail?
I like buzz. Guess I’m in the minority.
@ Graham: relax, Francis! They added a quick link that actually says “Turn Off Buzz.” Thank g-d.
Here’s my advice: If you host your information on a server you do not have physical access to 24/7, your information is not private. It is not secure. It is not safe. There are no exceptions. A checkbox here or there is not “safe.”
Now if you compromise, just be aware that every compromise risks your data more and more.
I just unfollowed and blocked everyone on my Buzz account. Fuck it. Let them sort it out and beg me to come back.
I tried it for a bit, it seemed rather pointless, to me. The privacy issue is the kicker, I’m bailing on Buzz. (and Wave, for that matter, does anyone know wtf it’s for?)
Matter of fact, I’m thinking of bailing out of all Google services. Their recent partnering with the NSA makes me pretty uneasy.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/915…
As much as I love gmail, google reader, google maps, gcal, etc, that is too damned much info in one place.