Google's Buzz Overstepped on Privacy

- Google has stepped over the privacy line -- in this case when it introduced its new Buzz product in early February.

Buzz is a new social networking application that is connected directly to Google's Gmail e-mail service. At its launch, Buzz would automatically draw your social network of friends from the people you "e-mail and chat with the most." On the surface, that was the problem -- because the Buzz service automatically determined who could see your data from your Gmail account -- and that's not necessarily who you want to see your private information.

I use Gmail only for testing and certain ancillary e-mail exchanges, so I got connected to only one person automatically. Yet there are a lot of people who use Gmail as their primary e-mail account and would be subject to great privacy risk under the scenario in which Buzz was launched. To make it worse, if your Google account also had photos in Google's Picassa online photo service and other Google services, your posts there also might be made more public.

The outcry from users and privacy activists was swift and loud. So within days, Google scaled back the way Buzz connects you automatically, and made it easier to change your privacy settings -- even turning off Buzz completely.

That reveals the true problem. Why did Google have to expose users in the first place? It would have been just as easy to give you the option before exposing you in Buzz. It was a poor decision by Google product managers to ignore the privacy concerns of users.

I've never been a fan of the way Google's Gmail service mines data from your inbound and outbound e-mail in an attempt to create a profile on you. You, as a user of Gmail can control which key words are in the messages you write; but you don't control the messages you receive.

Google now is making Gmail a prerequisite for its other applications, which intensifies concern. If you want to use a Google Voice number with a Google Android phone, you need a Gmail account. Through that Gmail account you log into your Google phone -- be it Google's own Nexus One phone or a Google Android-based phone such as the Motorola Droid, the htc Droid Eris or Hero. Without linking to the Gmail account, the phone loses much of its buyer appeal.

Google wants you to have one Google account for your e-mail, voice, photo editing/sharing, chatting and social networking through Buzz. It's simpler, but it assumes Google will do the right thing with your Gmail account because your life online then revolves around Gmail, which contains your contacts.

The launch decision with Buzz shows that not all Google product managers understand what true trust is. It's letting the users make their own privacy decisions, and defaulting in favor of helping them stay private if wanted.

You may think of Google as the best company in terms of making the Web simple. But until Google privacy policies become more transparent, it can't be the most trusted.

Funny story about buzz, i live in New Jersey and i was looking at buzzes from union city. A lot where from drug dealers saying to come buy from them. The buzz was was at the corner where they where. The comments under there buzzes where from people coming to buy or had already bought. Google is helping the drug market ... i had to say it.