You are correct, the specifics were specious. (Oh, isn't that a clever juxtaposition of words! ) But now that I know more about Buzz and what it is doing, not to my computer but to my privacy, I'd say that my reaction was not only justified, but considerably under-stated.

There's a pretty good article on CNET about how you can mitigate the Buzz damage (you can't get rid of Buzz entirely). This is going to turn into a public relations disaster comparable to the Sony rootkit fiasco.

I am re-thinking my unmitigated admiration for all things Google.

tanstaafl.

Dang'it!

Even though I declined Buzz when it's splash arrived during a gmail login, it still activated, and attached it's self to Picasa and Google Reader.

That Cnet artical tanstaafl pointed to has some decent cautions.

I was able to disable buzz without a lot of effort. I hadn't known the disable was in the gmail page footer. That is usually out of sight and out of mind.

So what are people going to find out about me because of this ? If I click on my buzz link it says I have one follower who I don't know but also happens to have the last name Saeger. So then I click on them and I get the message that says they haven't created a profile. Well I haven't made a profile so what are people going to get about me ?

I don't know how they decided to add that person I have contacts who have my last name and they nor any other contact got added.

Interesting. It looks like Google has made quite a few changes, and very much acknowledged that they didn't do things right.

I don't have that Buzz settings tab at all.

Interesting, neither do I. Perhaps they're rolling that out too? Seems odd to roll something like that out gradually...

From the article: (The Buzz tab isn't available yet, and they do say "we're adding", but hopefully it'll be there soon.)

tanstaafl.

Weren't people aware of Google invading privacy before this? I mean, their business model is based on data mining to better target ads. The only difference now is they are sharing all your stuff with the world instead of just internally or to their customers. I'm surprised people still believe that 'do no evil' thing.

There's a difference between data mining and aggregation and telling an ex-girlfriend* what I was up to at the weekend.

* = hypothetically.

Gizmodo: Google Admits Buzz Testing Sucked and They Are "Very, Very Sorry"

I followed the CNet article's recommendations and found them to be similar to what I had done on my own.

It's so weird that Google did this so bass-ackward. Don't they usually launch things as 'Beta' for months or years and there's always a definite 'opt in' method?
I mean, you need an invitation for their new services, usually, and any software they offer is definitely downloaded/installed/activated at the user's request.
So not like them.

Yahoo has been offering a social network ("Get updates on your friends!") for months and nobody has cared one iota. Nobody mentions it when they discuss social networking sites. It exists as a side panel on my yahoo mail page with no way to 'turn it off'. I don't participate, but I can't get rid of it, either. Oh well, it's a free service and if that's one of the ads I can't block then so be it. At least it isn't immediately and by default broadcasting my 'news' to the rest of my contact list.

I think Facebook has met the market need that MySpace didn't. They took the 'Classmates.com' concept and made it free and offered it to educated adults (at first), which garnered it a very sensible base population to start with. No frills and very little user customization. Then there's the games and apps (which I don't use) which add another dimension to the experience.

As for Twitter, I never followed any private blogs anyway, so 'micro-blogging' isn't part of my internet experience.
Call me old-fashioned.
*shrug*

Yeah, but they caught a lot of flak for doing that with Wave and not having enough users to make it usable.

A Slashdot article reviews the Buzz buzz and links the latest news on controls and settings and (yes!) disabling the service entirely.