By mike
To coin a phrase from Lifehacker.com, you can choose to completely nuke Google Buzz from your account. Looking at the screenshots via this PCWorld article, I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent FTC complaint filed against Google for the way that the “don’t be evil” search giant handled the rollout of Buzz?
Google has updated Gmail to include a “Buzz” tab, where you can prevent the public from seeing your followers list, remove the Buzz inbox from Gmail, and, as the nuclear option, completely kill your Buzz account
That last link, with the warning sign and red text, completely removes Buzz from your Google Profile, according to its wording. A commenter notes that it might also kill your Google Profile entirely, so be cautious if that’s something you want to keep around.
I’m blocked from Gmail at work and can’t bring up the full desktop version from my iPhone, so I guess I’ll have to wait to do this until later this eve. But there is that note about deleting your Google Profile that will be interesting to watch. I find it interesting that Google is taking a course of action here that will not just bring you back to where you started before Buzz, but actually to a lower level of end-user engagement by deleting profiles. If anything, this privacy debacle has made me take a good look at what I use my Google account for besides email, if not thinking about pulling my personal email from Google entirely – with the full support from my lovely wife who noted that it’s not like I haven’t changed my address a bunch of times recently. 
UPDATE: Yup, it works as advertised from what I can tell. No more Buzz and no more Google Profile.
By mike
You’ve got to wonder how badly you foobered up your product release when the Electronic Frontier Foundation has this to say about Buzz:
If you’re going to use Google Buzz, we recommend that you opt-out during profile creation. If you have already created a profile, change it to private immediately. Then go through the suggested list, and edit it as appropriate before making it public again. PC World has a helpful privacy checklist to help users understand the privacy implications of Google Buzz options.
How many people are going to want to read through such checklists and really tweak their profile/settings in order to actually take advantage of Buzz while maintaining some semblance of privacy? I just turned it off and removed anything I could find related to Buzz in my profile. If anything, it made me take a closer look at how open my profile was on Google.
Fail, Google. Really really really huge fail.
By mike
Didn’t realize that Google Buzz gets turned on with some really, really huge privacy-nuking options. WTF, Google?
From the Silicon Valley Insider:
A Google spokesperson asked us to phrase this claim differently. Like this: “In other words, after you create your profile in Buzz, if you don’t edit any of the default settings, someone could visit your profile and see the people you email and chat with most (provided you didn’t edit this list during profile creation).”
I guess I could take some time to figure out how to protect myself, but instead I’ll be sitting it out for now with a tech tip from Consumerist:
You can go into Buzz and selectively follow/unfollow certain people to avoid this kind of incident, but the best evasive maneuver is to scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click “Turn off Buzz.”
Wow… just wow, Google.
By mike
Yeah, there were a whole ton of people all pissed off about the latest Facebook terms of service (ToS). As Consumerist says:
Make sure you never upload anything you don’t feel comfortable giving away forever, because it’s Facebook’s now.
Queue the millions making FB groups denouncing Mark Zuckerberg, and so on. It now looks like the people at FB are taking a longer look at their decision:
Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.
If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
Whether you decide to keep your Facebook account or not, you might want to get just a wee bit more paranoid about who can see your stuff. And thus the recommendation of an excellent article over at AllFacebook: 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. There were more than a few good suggestions in there that I had no idea you could do. Read it. Facebook it.
