For those not familiar with Buzz, here's a quick primer: part Facebook and part Twitter, Buzz is a social networking tool that's linked to Gmail. if you're a Gmail user you may have seen the colorful Buzz icon suddenly appear in your menu. What Google has cleverly (or slyly) done is to leverage Gmail's 176 million strong user base to create a ready-made social network.
Google made an assumption – a disastrous one – that the people you email most frequently are your closest friends and used this to create an instant social network. Judging from the huge outcry from Gmail users it quickly became evident that the people we email most often are not necessarily our friends but our shrinks, our ex-lovers, our ……and these contacts were now made public for our entire network to see.Google quickly changed the specs and now just suggests contacts that you might want to include in your Buzz network. You have to opt them in – which is better - but Buzz’s privacy settings are still virtually impossible to decipher.
I’d noticed that Ruby had been getting a ton of Buzz mail so I signed up so I could get smart about how the service works. The big shocker for me was that as soon as I linked to Ruby’s network I could instantly see all her Buzz communications with her buddies.This is unlike Facebook where a user has to accept your friend request in order for you to access their profile and communications. Can't say I liked what these kids are posting but that's a topic for another post
Let’s face it; our kids are going to be the first adopters of most of these innovations but the scary thing for parents is this: if Google can’t even get it right out of the gate and compromises our privacy, our kids will be the first ones to suffer.
So maybe I should relent and reactivate Ruby’s Facebook account. It’s looking a darn sight safer now.
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