[nick-dap]

I remember when Google came out with Gmail and people were up in arms over ads appearing next to your email. Several years on and apparently it is OK to scan my address book and "auto-follow" a bunch of people I have in it.

The only thing I feel about Google Buzz is the violation of trust between me and the company. That is the real disruption.

[Herring]

It takes 10 seconds to unfollow, or 1 second to turn off buzz. I'd say it's just a convenient default for the rest of us..

[jfager]

By default, the people you follow are shown on your public profile. Couple that with the auto-follow bullshit, and suddenly you have a giant privacy flaw:

http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-google-buzz-has-a-hug...

And it's not as simple as saying "it takes 10 seconds to unfollow". The idea that Google would do something this stupid was so foreign to me that I didn't even realize it was happening until the second day I had Buzz enabled, when I happened to view my profile from another computer I wasn't logged in to. Once I realized there was a problem, yes, it only took 10 seconds for the actual act of unfollowing everyone and turning off Buzz. But it took me another hour to make sure I wasn't missing anything, that the off button actually turned it off, that the Reader integration didn't have it's own little privacy quirks, etc. This is a massive fail for Google.

[nick-dap]

I went searching through the Settings page to no avail before I gave up and Googled (irony) how to turn it off.

Besides the point though. They opt you into a service you didn't sign up for, and require you to take measured steps to preserve your privacy.

It's good for Google, whether its a good default or not is debatable.

[akkartik]

Yes, it's being debated: http://www.techmeme.com/100210/p66#a100210p66

[sketerpot]

I had to click a button to enable Buzz. Did they change their sign-up policy at some point?

[ewjordan]

Same here - logged into Gmail and I was forced to choose whether to go into Buzz or old fashioned Gmail. Maybe they're tinkering with the process or something...

I'd have to agree, though, that the default of following everyone that you e-mail is a bit extreme, especially if everyone else can see it, too. Probably better to at least offer people a choice, either follow all, follow none, or manually select.

As far as privacy violations go, though, I don't see this one as very major. I'd expect that with all the complaining going on, this behavior will be changed very soon.

[bmj]

Me, too.

It was available for mobile users immediately, but it also didn't seem to be integrated into mobile GMail when I first looked at it.

[cookiecaper]

I was just going to post saying I didn't think they invaded privacy because they don't post anything by default, so if you don't do anything with it it just sits there, but then I remembered that they _do_ link Picasa and Reader by default, so that's pretty bad, yeah. I know that it autofollowed and auto-subscribed some workmates with whom I don't want to share anything which wasn't explicitly intended for them.

So, Buzz would be fine if it just left everything alone, but I would be pissed if I actually used Picasa or Reader and my activity got published without my explicit approval.

I also want to control who can follow me -- if that option exists right now, I haven't found it. I don't want casual acquaintances or workmates to see things I post, even if they've subscribed to me.

[jsz0]

I couldn't agree more. I use my GMail contacts as a general purpose address book so my brief trial of Buzz resulted in lots of stuff from people I don't really know outside of a very limited context. Does the reseller I e-mailed from GMail 3 years ago understand I'm seeing this information? I really doubt it.

[maurycy]

I wish I could up vote you million times.

Wake up, sheeple!