The Buzz about Google Buzz

To Buzz or not to Buzz...

Admit it. You love Google. We love Google. Everyone loves Google. What started out as a simple search engine company has turned into a giant conglomeration of useful services. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, iGoogle… the list goes on and on. If it’s an internet service, you can bet that Google has (or is planning to) come out with its own version.

Google just came out with yet another feature: Google Buzz. Basically, it’s a Facebook/Twitter competitor, allowing you to post status updates and follow your friends. It even lets you link with other sites, like Twitter and Flickr, so that you can keep all of your updates in one simple place. Best of all, it’s conveniently located right in your Gmail, so all you have to do is click a few buttons and you’re all set to go. For social networking lovers, it’s a dream come true – right?

Well, not quite. Google Buzz has some serious privacy issues that any potential user should be aware of.

Buzz Requires a Google Profile

To start with, when you create a Buzz account, you have to create a Google profile. This profile is public, so that, in Google’s terms, “friends can find and recognize you.” This means that your name and any personal information you put up on this page are automatically searchable in any search engine.

To counteract this issue, change your profile so that is doesn’t show your full name. However, anyone who knows the url of your profile can still view it – there’s no way to block it.

Which shows the world your gmail address

The second privacy issue has to do with the url of your profile page. It looks like this: www.google.com/profiles/yourgoogleusernamehere. If your Gmail address is the same as your Google username (and for many users, it is), then anyone who looks at your profile page can find your email address. Unless you want to let everyone in the world know how to directly contact you, this is a pretty serious issue.

To fix this, you can edit the url of your profile so that it ends in a bunch of numbers, like this: www.google.com/profiles/1111111111111111111. While it could be better – twenty random didgits at the end of your url can be nearly impossible to remember – at least this gives you a measure of privacy.

And then shares all of your contacts!

The final privacy issue is the one that had been causing some of the greatest controversy. When you create a Buzz account, it automatically sets you up to follow all the people you chat with and send emails to most often. This wouldn’t be so bad – except that all of those people are automatically posted to your profile page, so that the whole world can see your contacts list. The implications of this are almost frightening.

Again, there is a solution. You can edit your profile so that it doesn’t show your list of followers/followed, but if you have already made an account, you may have already exposed this information to anyone who was looking. It’s fixable – but you shouldn’t have to take that risk.

Google Buzz has great potential for social networking; it’s like combining email with Facebook. But all users should beware of the privacy issues – and maybe take some time to fix a few of them before actively using the site.

Useful Links

A guide to making your followers list private

Google Buzz Launch Video

Tags: Buzz, google, google buzz, privacy issue, social media

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Studio News, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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