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Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

• waterlesscloud 17y ago
  This is the sort of thing that was absolutely predictable.
  • fnid2 17y ago
    If you are certain that this was absolutely predictable, you are implying either: a) The Google Buzz people are so stupid that they couldn't have predicted this absolutely predictable thing (no one else did that I know of until it bit them) or b) they knew this would happen and chose to allow it to happen in the bad times hoping the love they'd get from those who like it would be greater than the pain experienced by those to whom it happened. If either (a) or (b) is true, can we trust Google with our private information? Either they are too dumb to keep it out of the wrong hands or they don't care about individuals' privacy.
    • ajdecon 17y ago
      (b) is almost certain. I have trouble believing no one at Google thought, "I have people in my email contacts I don't want to share with on Buzz." They probably thought that these cases would be in a tiny minority, and that they could respond to complaints with pointers for how to block people.
      • bp001 17y ago
        Agree that (b) is almost certain. Google had the decision to jump-start their social network in a big way at a cost of annoying maybe 1 in 100 gmail users who are conscious about this sort of thing. Seems like an obvious decision to a for-profit company. It raises questions in my mind about what data I am providing to Google and what unforeseen ways they may decide to use that data at some future point.
        • fnid2 17y ago
          What if Google just starts buying stuff for you and having it shipped to your house. You can opt-out once it arrives -- if you can figure out the RMA process...
      • thrdOriginal 17y ago
        You're probably right but what would make them think this would be a tiny minority? Have these engineers never had ex-girlfriends?
        • deleted 17y ago
          [deleted]
        • danieldon 17y ago
          Sane people don't have excessive drama with their exes.
          • thrdOriginal 17y ago
            Sane people don't make accounts to troll anti-google posts. And who said anything about excessive drama: do I really need to list the myriad reasons why one wouldn't want email to automatically "follow" exes and vice versa?
            • ErrantX 17y ago
              Clearly this is an edge case though; you cant protect against every eventuality!
          • moss 17y ago
            Sane people do not always have sane exes.
    • raquo 17y ago
      So you say that a team of engineers does not understand that most frequent contacts != those whom I wish to share my stuff with? Are edge cases like the original post hard to predict? Did they do any testing, even with their friends/colleagues? That doesn't sound smart to me. Either their incentives are misaligned (b) or there are some other problems.
      • deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      • stanleydrew 17y ago
        buzz was internally available at Google for a few months before launch, so yes there was testing.
        • neurotech1 17y ago
          If it was a 'work' gmail account, it is quite possible that the people in their frequent contacts, are people they normally share related information with so the question didn't really come up. Another possibility is that they assumed people would simply disable and that would solve the issue. It turned out to be an incorrect assumption.
          • stanleydrew 17y ago
            I can attest that your first presumption is true. My girlfriend works at Google and internally it's not that big a deal to share information to your most frequent contacts, since you're generally not doing anything inappropriate or private on the internal corporate network anyway.
    • Snark7 17y ago
      c) http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/s/SNAFUprinciple.html http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/s/SNAFUprinciple.html Generally speaking, it is difficult for useful information to flow in organizations. Most of the time, this lack of circulation is not remarkable, but this looks like a big deal to me, the sort of thing that gives PR people nightmares. I would wager that at least one Buzz engineer raised this concern weeks if not months ago but was ignored or pressured into backing down.
    • SamAtt 17y ago
      There are other options available. What almost certainly happened here is that Google was so concerned with getting the features right that they pushed it out without asking "What could go wrong?" A lot of startups do that and most of the time they're fine because they can learn as their user base grows. But Google made a strategic decision to bind Buzz to Gmail and that is what caused the problem. The lesson is that a lot of people are thoughtless when building technology but once you get to the size of Google you can no longer afford to be as lax as everyone else.
    • deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    • waterlesscloud 17y ago
      I know it was absolutely predictable because c), I predicted it. About 20 minutes into using Buzz. I posted on my Buzz, in fact, that I was waiting to see the resulting mess. So yes, I'm certain that it was.
  • Semiapies 17y ago
    Exactly so: if you put your address and other contact information online, people will find it. I started off agreeing with her complaint, but it suddenly struck me: she's trying to avoid an abusive ex-husband - why on Earth did she even put that information in her Google profile to start with? I have estranged family members, which is exactly why I don't put that sort of information in online profiles, and I'm not even worrying about an abusive husband who has my email address.
• Flemlord 17y ago
  "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place..." -Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in 2009.
  • deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  • dmm 17y ago
    I hate that attitude so much. I hate that man. We are all criminals in today's world. He understands that. He just doesn't care. He's a part of the elite that can afford lawyers and protection. In my wildest dreams he is sued under the DMCA for making a backup copy of one of his kid's dvds. HATE
  • tsally 17y ago
    As I pointed out two months ago, this quote is taken out of context [1]. I'll reproduce the full quote here: Judgment matters... If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place... If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities. Schmidt simply suggested that if you have an extraordinarily high need for privacy you should not use Google. He's right and I agree with him. This is the CEO of a company reminding his consumers that Google has to conform to the PATRIOT Act. He's saying something that could potentially hurt his business by pointing out how your privacy is hurt because of the laws they have to comply to. Remember the attack on Google by China a few weeks back? Where the subject lines of the email of civil rights activists were compromised? This happened because of a mechanism Google was forced to put in place to conform to federal wiretap laws. Schmidt was spot on in what he said. We've got a strong enough case against Google without resorting to cheap tricks. What they've done with Buzz is unforgivable. I may well be migrating away from Google's services in the next week or two, depending on how this pans out. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984646 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984646
• kevingadd 17y ago
  How do you not see this coming with a feature like Buzz? Why didn't they do any sort of staged roll-out or opt-in for a feature with such obvious privacy implications? I'm stunned. Doesn't Google employ tons of lawyers, ethics experts, or people with enough common sense to spot this? Maybe it was some sort of skunk-works project that got out without sufficient oversight?
  • motters 17y ago
    Google employs a lot of smart people, so this is a real failure on their part - probably the biggest that I've yet seen from them. All previous similar addons to gmail have been opt in, so I wonder what caused them to change that policy in this case.
  • CaptainZapp 17y ago
    I'd wager a guess: Greed? So much for do no evil...
    • lsc 17y ago
      but it's /stupid/ to piss away the goodwill of nerds, and there is a rather large subset of the nerd population that is freakishly concerned about privacy. If you want to do business with nerds, you need to respect that. Google, I think, did a very good job of building trust and enthusiasm with nerds; it's super important for them, we are the influencers here. Sure, nerds never click on ads, but who do you think sets up the computer for the confused normals who do? The number of nerds I know who hate google to the point of using inferior search engines is growing over time.
      • hexis 17y ago
        Greed can make you stupid, just like any other kind of lust.
  • rbanffy 17y ago
    > Why didn't they do any sort of staged roll-out or opt-in I distinctly remember to have clicked in something like "I want to use buzz" before having it enabled
• RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  Amongst others, this is one reason why I'm not an early-adopter. Too many things have odd consequences, and although this one is and pretty much always was obvious, many are not, and require devious minds and talented/persistent hackers to find them. So, in fact, this is an opportunity to say "thank you" to the hackers out there that tinker with and attempt to break (sorry - "improve") everything as soon as they can get their hands on it. You make the world a better place.
  • ableal 17y ago
    Nice walk-through, for the cautious like you and me: http://savedelete.com/discover-how-to-do-use-google-buzz-and-turn-it-off.html http://savedelete.com/discover-how-to-do-use-google-buzz-and... (posted yesterday by yogeshmankani: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118141 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118141 )
  • dagobart 17y ago
    as you get auto-subscribed, this is no early adopter. Gmail's around for years
• ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
  Having worked in the family services sector...I'm actually thinking this post is full bullshit. I very much doubt this even happened. I could be wrong of course, but the post has way too many red flags to sound true.
  • snprbob86 17y ago
    Please list some of these red flags for those of us without a family services sector background.
• rwhitman 17y ago
  There are clearly no longer any humans working at google, just one giant heartless inhuman machine calling the shots... Or at least thats how Google looks to the public these days. If thats the perception they want, they got it. I think this Buzz privacy fiasco is an historic lesson in the convergence of humanity and software and the lesson learned is that privacy of personal relationships should be a fundamental right
  • jasonlotito 17y ago
    Not sure what the problem is. I have complete control over the privacy settings of all my accounts. After reading the post, I think the problem is the poster made a choice before this not to use the privacy features.
    • dkersten 17y ago
      Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list - some of whom I don't think should have been added - and I had to actively go and search for the privacy/remove/turn off features. If, on the other hand, Google had said "heres our new Google Buzz feature, heres how to turn it on, heres the privacy settings and heres how you can add everyone|people you talk to regularly|manually add" then I'd be perfectly happy. Opt in is better than opt out, as far as privacy is concerned.
      • pavs 17y ago
        >Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list. To the best of my knowledge they prompt you and ask you who you want to follow. This was the case for me. They don't automatically follow - unless you click the OK button. Turning off buzz is literally one click away at the bottom of the screen. I know because I used it.
        • jeffmould 17y ago
          When I set my one gmail account up it did not prompt me, all my contacts were added. However, I went to look at another account I have and it did not add the contacts from that. Not sure if it is a timing issue, as I set my first account up within 12 hours of them releasing Buzz and waited till yesterday after hearing all the complaints to see what it looked like in my other account and if I maybe missed something the first time. I think they may have either fixed the issue or are working on fixing it.
• jazzychad 17y ago
  I have never created a google profile either. Is simply clicking "turn off buzz" at the bottom of gmail sufficient to completely opt-out of all of this nonsense? ...because that's exactly what I want to do at this point.
  • bozmac 17y ago
    You'll have to block people who are following you first
    • roqetman 17y ago
      No, if you don't have a public profile, then no-one will be following you.
      • bozmac 17y ago
        I didn't have a public profile but Google still automatically added people who were following me. I had to block them one-by-one.
• etherealG 17y ago
  uh, nothing that you post on anywhere outside buzz is propagated via buzz unless you ask buzz to propagate it, unless I missed something. also, buzz doesn't have access to this information unless you allow it to. it seemed that way to me when I used it.
  • cookiecaper 17y ago
    Buzz automatically adds at least Reader and Picasa streams to your Buzz account.
    • losvedir 17y ago
      But it's not too hard to remove them. The way the Buzz settings found my contacts and added them was perfect, because I use my gmail account frequently with my friends -- I'm right in their ideal use case. This person didn't -- either she could not have "Okayed" Buzz at all and there would be no issue, or once she saw that it added all the wrong people she could disable her sites and then not post to it.
      • RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
        > But it's not too hard to remove them. > ... > ... once she saw that it added all the wrong people > she could disable her sites and then not post to it. But the point is that these require that you actively prevent Google from sharing your data, and that you realise it's doing so. That seems wrong. It shouldn't do things and then require me to notice that I didn't want them, and then work out how to disable them, and then trust that nothing went wrong in the interim period before I noticed. EDIT: It's not me who down-voted you because I think your comment adds value. It tells us that people think these options are OK. I think you're wrong, but I think it's important that your opinion is seen as reasonable by some. Just not me.
      • isleyaardvark 17y ago
        "But it's not too hard" is just as easily written "It's not too obvious how to".
• sailormoon 17y ago
  I must say that this person strikes me as having "issues" and thus I think I'll wait for more information before passing judgement. I mean just look at rest of the blog. I look at that, and I do not think, "wow, that's a calm, reasonable person who is going to give me a fair and balanced description of what the problem is".
  • houseabsolute 17y ago
    I don't understand what more information you need. Do you believe she's lying? She makes no secret of her difficult past on her blog.
  • bad_user 17y ago
    Only calm and reasonable people should be listened to? Of course she's having issues. We all do. That's how it is in the real world ;) ... and some of us are extroverts, sharing our feelings with others. But it doesn't mean that if I have a message for Fred, everybody should read it ... and normal people don't know how to protect themselves, that's why this whole trend on "public by default" taken by Google and others is so worrying.
    • griftah 17y ago
      If you have a message for Fred, send it to Fred privately. Don't share it with whole world.
      • pmjordan 17y ago
        This is the point. Her messages were private until Google enabled buzz without asking, automatically followed people and let them follow her, and shared her Google Reader stuff. It did the same to my account, I didn't even realize it until I read the article.
        • griftah 17y ago
          Her messages were public. She just thought that nobody will find them except her friend.
• benatkin 17y ago
  If you're an active user of Google Reader's social networking features who tried out Buzz, please chime in. I wonder if it really happened as automatically as it sounds, from the post, or if she missed something. (I've tried out Buzz, but haven't used Google Reader in months.)
  • wyclif 17y ago
    I've been an active user of Google Reader since it went live, and I also have a Google profile. When I enabled Buzz, the only users added to my Buzz network were those already in my GReader shared network. Then I added a few others to Buzz. No problems here; no sense of an invasion of privacy whatsoever. The rub is that I have no idea what results look like for those who don't use GReader or GProfile.
  • nimrody 17y ago
    I use google reader and I have noticed only new shared items on Buzz posts. I.e., it did not automatically 'publish' old stuff I have shared. Seems OK with me. In fact, I kind of like it. Only complaints I have are: 1. Missing tagging functionality (or I haven't found one) 2. No centralized 'privacy control panel'
• JulianMorrison 17y ago
  One thing that certainly is true about this: there's no simple, obvious single place to tune all your Google privacy settings. I've found how to do it, but I had to look under cushions and behind the sofa, so to speak.
  • DTrejo 17y ago
    Where is it?
    • dkersten 17y ago
      You can turn Buzz off on the bottom of your gmail page and privacy settings can be found at https://www.google.com/accounts/ https://www.google.com/accounts/ though I still found it awkward and unintuitive really.
      • og1 17y ago
        Thank you. Although it is there I'd consider where they put that link as intentionally hiding it.
      • snorkel 17y ago
        I don't see any mention of Buzz in any of my Gmail accounts settings pages. Please tell me I would've had to consciously enable Buzz in order to have the option to turn it off. Please tell me Google is not automatically making my Google account a Buzz account too.
        • dkersten 17y ago
          Nope, theres no mention of Buzz in the accounts setting or the gmail settings. They automatically enabled it for me and I had to hunt to find the disable link in a non-standard (for their apps) place. I'm not very happy about this, honestly.
      • danudey 17y ago
        Went to your link to see what privacy settings there were. Noticed the address they had on file was my last company's US address. Removed that, then saw that somehow the payments for that company's Google Apps account were made through MY Google account, and their credit card was still on file. Thanks Google, for storing someone else's credit card for someone else's services on my account, for no reason I can find, other than the obvious 'I didn't realize what account I was signed in with', which seems unlikely because their Google Apps account was created before I ever started working there. Man, Google's getting more and more confusing. It's a giant labyrinthine maze of data that only they have the time and processing power to sort through.
• radu_floricica 17y ago
  I'd like a clarification from somebody who uses Reader / Picassa. Is any of the stuff that's suddenly available to following people actually private, in the sense of impossible to access? Or simply "obscure", i.e. if you know the username and look for it you can find it?
  • griftah 17y ago
    Obscure.
    • Lazlo_Nibble 17y ago
      Wrong -- it adds the list of people you exchange email with to the list of people you follow, which is publicly visible by default. There was no way for anyone to see who you exchange email with until this happened. The fact that you can go back and block your "following" list from public view is irrelevant -- the list of people you exchange email with should never have been put on that list without your explicit consent. It's a unilateral change in the terms of the agreement you have with Google. Letting Google publish a list of people I follow in Google Reader is consent to publish a list of people I follow in Google Reader -- it is NOT consent to publish a list of people I email or who email me.
• illumin8 17y ago
  I'm trying to understand how this is a problem. Surely, it doesn't matter who is following you, as long as you don't post through Buzz. This sounds like someone complaining about wierdos following you on Twitter. Nobody is forcing you to tweet. If you don't want to publish your life to the world, then don't.
  • loup-vaillant 17y ago
    The issue was about Google reader. The information she put there to share with friends apparently leaked. It can happen whenever privacy policies are changed, by the way.
  • godDLL 17y ago
    She does use the social features, and the communication; albeit limited to her two closest relatives. These are all the people she ever wanted to use her e-mail, Reader sharing, and chat with. Gmail keeps track of your correspondents and automatically nominates them to be your social circle, which is way out of the scope of this girl's usage and requirements for and e-mail client. What she wanted was web-based anonymous e-mail, and Google didn't help her out there much.
    • loup-vaillant 17y ago
      "web-based anonymous e-mail" can't exist. It is just too tempting for the hosting company to use your personal data without your explicit consent.
      • loup-vaillant 17y ago
        I don't understand the disagreement. Can someone explain to me why "web-based anonymous e-mail" can reliably exist ? (short of having your mail server at home, of course)
        • lmkg 17y ago
          http://www.lavabit.com http://www.lavabit.com They (claim to) use some sort of asymmetric encryption scheme such that they literally do not have access to the data on their own servers. I'd love to have a crypto expert explain to me if it's legit.
• rapind 17y ago
  I wish I could look poke around with the settings and give some advice on how to avoid this... but I can't even get buzz to show up with a gmail domain account. Anyone else have integration issues between domain accounts, premium accounts, and plain gmail accounts?
  • drusenko 17y ago
    yes. domain accounts are considered "business" accounts and do not get any of the new features until they are proven out -- we're usually on a 4-9 month exciting feature delay.
    • rapind 17y ago
      And yet somehow for a while I had a personal account linked with my domain account, but the passwords were different... The behavior isn't that of the least surprise I've come to expect from google.
      • drusenko 17y ago
        tl;dr: google accounts are really confusing here's what's most confusing. there's a "google account", that can be any email address (including a google apps for your domain email). this is not the same as a gmail account, it's just a "google account". this type of account can use almost every service (except for gmail, and probably a few others), and it's a personal account. it's so distinct from your "business"/domain account, that it can even have different passwords. then, you have your domain account. it can also access some services (like google apps), but these are all accessed through a special URL -- like mail.google.com/a/weebly.com, or calendar.google.com/a/weebly.com, etc. this is also a unique account which has its own password. long story short: super confusing
        • matrix 17y ago
          The worst part of all? Google's own properties handle these different types of accounts poorly. Google App Engine in particular will lock you out if you inadvertently have an administrator with a Google Account and Goodle Domain Account with the same email address.
• monkeygrinder 17y ago
  I have a few questions - how did it find her anonymous blog? I assume it was a Blogger account? I've turned Buzz off and yet my work colleague next to me said he is getting notifications that I am 'following' him - on Buzz, Reader. It's more tricky than Twitter, because I can't 'unfollow' people. Google Buzz also found the one tweet my friend sent in 2007 and published it on Buzz as latest news. They could make privacy a little easier for the non-tech folk - ie most of the population - or there will be these sorts of knee jerk reactions.
  • jsz0 17y ago
    Probably. It linked up an old Blogger account of mine that I haven't used in years. It could have been embarrassing since it was exposed to all my GMail contacts who might have enabled Buzz including people I barely know, work collages, etc. The Blogger account has a bunch of stupid stuff on it that was only intended to be viewed by friends. I'm quite sure someone could have found it by cyber stalking me but to have it shoved in their faces is entirely different. Of course I'm not even sure what other people on Buzz could see. There's no clear distinction between public & private information.
• loup-vaillant 17y ago
  This is the problem when you give your personal data to big companies. They do what they want with it, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. They have the power, you do not. It was obvious with Facebook, now it becomes obvious with Google. But really, it should be obvious for any online service. Starting with web mail. "Technology Shouldn't Give Big Brother a Head Start" Bruce Schneier http://www.schneier.com/essay-281.html http://www.schneier.com/essay-281.html "I will offer you free web hosting, with some PHP doodads; and you get spying. For free." Eben Moglen http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338 http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338
  • Pahalial 17y ago
    Honestly, Google is still allowing me to opt out at any time. They (as far as we know) use "eventual deletion," but it's still deletion. Facebook on the other hand has so far retained everything that has ever been on it, according to the interview with an employee that was on HN a few weeks ago. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1045879 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1045879 ) That said, the way Buzz was introduced was definitely a leap in the wrong direction by Google.
• Tichy 17y ago
  I completely don't understand Buzz yet. Can somebody explain why Buzz allowed that husband to read things he couldn't read before? Did it publish private conversations?
  • rksprst 17y ago
    It seems like when she signed up to Buzz it auto-followed her most frequently used contacts (which included her ex-husband). As a follower he was able to read her shared google reader feeds (since those items are automatically shared via Buzz) and since she put personal info in her the comments she made to shared items, her abusive ex-husband was able to see them.
  • Sukotto 17y ago
    She set up a shared G-reader feed for her trusted contacts to read. Buzz auto-added her untrusted contacts. The shared feed included sensitive info (like where she lives) and now that secret info is available to her violent and abusive ex-spouse (and all his friends.
• GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
  I think she should get a lawyer and sue Google's ass.
  • jm4 17y ago
    On what grounds do you think she could file a lawsuit and have an expectation of it going anywhere? GMail is a free service for most users. You could choose not to use or it just turn off Buzz. You don't go around suing people just because you can't figure out how to set preferences. It's not like they're acting in bad faith by deliberately making it difficult to disable.
    • GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
      Well, first of all, whether it's free or not is pretty much irrelevant. This is a business for Google - they're taking people's personal information and using it to make billions of dollars in advertising. I don't think it would be hard to convince a jury that they have a duty to make a reasonable effort to protect the information that has been entrusted to their care.
      • dkersten 17y ago
        convince a jury But this would be a civil case, right? There is only a Jury if its a criminal case. EDIT: I stand corrected.
        • matasar 17y ago
          That's not true. Civil cases can have a jury.
          • andreyf 17y ago
            Can we have a source please, from either of you?
            • 17y ago
• conanite 17y ago
  The author seems like a competent internet user. I wonder though what happens to the intersection of people with her privacy needs and the people who don't know how to login to facebook?
• aswanson 17y ago
  It was ridiculously arrogant to just force-configure a network on users like that. Thinking of dumping my Gmail account.
  • danudey 17y ago
    Thinking about it won't solve anything, because if you just think about it you won't do it. If you don't like the faceless information harvesting machine Google is becoming, ditch their services. Otherwise, may as well just accept it.
    • altano 17y ago
      I've absolutely adored gmail since I got it for forwarding, spam filtering, and providing me with a permanent email address to give out to people. I'm definitely ditching it now over this and this alone. Which sucks because I will miss those great attributes, but they simply aren't worth this nonsense. Maybe if I could have easily turned it off (or if it was opt-in, of course)...
• Sukotto 17y ago
  This really demonstrates the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Whomever wrote this thing in their 20% time was likely really smart but really unwise. :-(
  • hussong 17y ago
    At first, I was thinking this came from Google intensely dogfooding their products in-house before releasing them into the wild: Within a company, you solve privacy issues simply by not sharing personal secrets. The frame of communication is professional and work-related and the mundane chatter won't get you in trouble. But then again, I'm not sure if Eric Schmidt would happily share who he's corresponding with or following with the entire staff...
• EricBurnett 17y ago
  I think the point most people are missing is that the data Google shared was already public. Reader has its own privacy and sharing policies, and as far as I can tell Buzz respects these. Even if this person successfully polices Buzz, the reader feed is still out there, public and waiting to be found. Reader privacy settings can be changed at https://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#friends-manager-page https://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#friends-manager-p...
  • roqetman 17y ago
    I agree - I don't have a public profile setup, so nothing was added to buzz for me.
  • prosa 17y ago
    Sure, but there's a huge difference between "waiting to be found" and "pushed to the foreground". It's just like the Facebook Newsfeed debacle. People tend to have an expectation of "how public" something is on a scale, and when that changes suddenly it can be a bit jarring. Ultimately, people adjust -- but it's a mistake to look at public/private as a binary concept. In many people's minds, it is a sliding scale.
    • Tawheed 17y ago
      If anything, Google should've learned from the Facebook debacle before releasing a News Feed of their own. Essentially, Google made the SAME EXACT mistakes as Facebook did.
      • wvenable 17y ago
        They're not mistakes -- it's strategy. Google simply has the same strategy as Facebook for the same reasons.
        • Tawheed 17y ago
          How is it strategy when they're reverting their mistakes? Unless ofcourse screwing over a handful of people for 3 days of press buzz is considered strategy.
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• ANH 17y ago
  Voted this up because I don't recall saying 'yes' to Buzz, yet somehow I'm following people I never wanted to follow, and people are following me who are completely unfamiliar to me. And apparently I've shared some items I "shared" only due to an errant mouse-click many moons ago.
• pilif 17y ago
  I wonder... before buzz, her ex-husband could also have followed her, probably without her ever noticing. Now that buzz generated, well, buzz, she found out about it and now can actually take mesures to block her ex. While I see dubious value of automatically setting often mailing addresses to following (this should not have been the case, IMHO), I have a feeling that the much more visible follow-relationships right now might actually be an improvement to the older situation where you never really knew who was following whom, as right now, you actually have a chance to find out about it. (also as a preventive measure: I'm not trying to troll. I understand her and I'm feeling bad for her, but I would really like to discuss whether this can't actually be some kind of a good thing as she at least knows that he's following her now)
  • mechanical_fish 17y ago
    You don't get to cherry-pick the scenarios. If you're going to play the cost-benefit game you have to enumerate them all, or at least all of the common ones. (Here's just one of the many alternative scenarios: For every technically-sophisticated stalker who is unmasked by this change, I'll bet there are several technically-unsophisticated stalkers who didn't used to know how to stalk someone through Google, but who now do.) Anyway, you can do all the sociological research you want, but that still doesn't make it right to manipulate someone else's personal toolset without their consent. You still have to ask. The person who does get to cherry-pick scenarios -- to steer the course of his or her life in situationally-appropriate ways -- is the customer. Unless you're a Google customer, apparently, in which case the company will change the nature of its existing tools, without fair warning, to suit its own benefit.
    • pilif 17y ago
      Thanks. I see. I do also think though that the previous setup provided security by obscurity (it was hard to stalk, but it was also hard to notice being stalked), whereas the new setup is open about that fact. Relying on your stalker not to be technically-sophisticated seems risky. I agree on the point of not changing existing tools, though arguably, this was a change for the better (now you see that you are being stalked and how to stop it), albeit one which could have done even better (by turning all of the existing features off, then implementing buzz and then giving people the chance to opt-in again).
• hussong 17y ago
  The ability to set privacy settings individually per contact, not just on the entire list seems to be a critical missing feature on buzz. There are some people you don't want to follow at all, and there are some people you want to follow in private. As a friend of mine pointed out in a recent blog post, you really don't want to make all info on all the people you follow public, especially if they're your kids: http://anwag.posterous.com/ http://anwag.posterous.com/
• raganwald 17y ago
  Ask HN: I don't have a Google Profile, I said no thanks when Gmail asked me if I wanted to try Buzz, and I clicked "turn off buzz" at the bottom of gmail. Can anyone tell me if people can follow me in Buzz? Or if I'm following anybody? I have been clicking around in Google and I have no idea how to control this and I don't want to turn Buzz on by accident... Rant: The terrible thing is, I didn't give Buzz another thought until all this negative publicity turned up. Now I'm sitting here very paranoid that Google is misusing information about me. And I'm wasting a lot of time trying to figure out what it is or isn't doing. I resent having this fear and I am annoyed that my lack of confidence that "No Means No" leads to wasting time on Google. You can definitely add me to the list of people who believe Google is the new Microsoft. They have hired some of this generations' best and brightest for what? To find new ways to spray ad feces on the Internet, to kowtow to oppressive regimes up to the moment when they realized they were being back stabbed, and to treat privacy as a quaint and archaic notion. Worst of all, from the perspective of the HN community, they seem to be acting like the Microsoft of old: Instead of indexing information, they want to own it themselves, which is why they roll out services like Buzz directly competing with Twitter, Foursquare, Friendfeed, Facebook, and so on. It's a sad day for Google when I start to sympathize with Rupert Murdoch. But now I understand why he wasn't rushing to embrace how Google would add value to his news businesses.
  • shaddi 17y ago
    I've got the same question. Shoot me an email and I can try to follow you and report back; I'd appreciate if you did the same.
    • raganwald 17y ago
      I set up a fake account for testing and tried to search for myself using my various email addresses. They don't seem to exist. So right now I think that setting up a Profile is the key. Once you set that up, Buzz can start sharing your information and you would have to fool around with privacy settings to shut that down. I hope I'm mistaken about this, it would seriously suck http://rot13.com/index.php?text=fhpx%20tbng%20qvpx http://rot13.com/index.php?text=fhpx%20tbng%20qvpx if your profile is the key to broadcasting news about you to everyone in your (automatically generated) address book including who is frequently mailed or mailing you.
• Tawheed 17y ago
  Class action lawsuit?
  • nfnaaron 17y ago
    You'd have to have people who were provably harmed, in a way that jurors or judges would recognized as harmed. Google will defend themselves vigorously, and likely win. And it would take a long time. More effective to just leave gmail. It threads conversations and gives you a lot of storage. Other than that it's just email. There are lots of cheap email options where the only way the provider makes money is by you paying them a small amount of it, not by sifting and analyzing the contents of your email and the relationships between your contacts and correspondents.
• berglund 17y ago
  The (false) assumption is that a person has inherent privacy both on the internets and in the carbon based world. A very quick look at your local property appraisers office or clerk of courts should show you that the individual must be vigilant in protecting this right. I don't trust google anymore than I trust any individual I don't know. I am using their service, and I know that they can give up all me emails, on purpose or by accident, and I have to be aware of what I send over that service. Clearly google has done a foolish thing here, but based on the above, not one that should have been unexpected. Such is the state of modern life. You can always shut it off.
• pasbesoin 17y ago
  Amen. A close family member has spent the past decade going to sometimes extreme measures to avoid an abusive ex-spouse. Google has potentially pre-emptively revealed their contact information; and not through their own choices and/or lack of action (on zero notice, spending perhaps hours wandering through a plenitude of scattered and poorly documented Buzz settings and behaviors -- please!). No: Any email contact who uses Gmail is now a potential point of exposure for them. ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. Stupidity can aid and abet evil, Google. If you are not purposefully evil, you are aiding and abetting it. My trust is gone. It's not coming back. If you want any measure of damage control, you will determine who was actually responsible for this. And everyone in a position of responsibility for this product who did not understand or chose not to heed these concerns. And you will terminate them. Anything less, and we can do no more than expect similar bad decisions -- from those same people -- in the future.
  • jamesbritt 17y ago
    "And you will terminate them. Anything less, and we can do no more than expect similar bad decisions -- from those same people -- in the future." I'm not looking to defend Google's choices about Buzz. But I take exception to the idea of firing people who make bad decisions without due consideration for how those decisions came about. It flies in the face of a mantra at HN: Fail early and often. It goes against the idea that you learn by making mistakes. If a company fires people for making a poor decision out of ignorance, then they have just lost someone with valuable experience about a potentially troublesome choice. Now that company has to go get someone who (most likely) has not fucked up in that way. (I bet most places do not hire people who got fired from another job for fucking up.) Who is more likely to make that same or a similar mistake in the future? The person who already fucked up and learned something, or the new person without that experience? Some people screw up because they are innately incompetent in some field. Let them go; they will not get any better. Others screw up because they are doing something new, or acting with incomplete or wrong information. In that case, the problem may not be the person but the situation. Fix the conditions, don't just find a scapegoat.
    • Vivtek 17y ago
• ConceptDog 17y ago
  If you have concerns over privacy, move your data somewhere that doesn't obviously look into your private data for the purposes of advertising. Stay anonymous. Use your ISP's email. Use accounts you pay for and can hold accountable for transgressions like this. You give your data freely to google without understanding the terms of that transaction and they will use those rights in some way you arn't happy with. She should cancel all of her google accounts and move somewhere that gives more favorable terms of service and is directly accountable to her.
  • waterlesscloud 17y ago
    Having thought about it some more, Google is in deep and immediate trouble. They need to act swiftly (in days) and decisively to get on top of this before public perception gets out of hand. Simply put, Google can NOT afford to have public opinion turn against their opt-out model. Their whole vision depends on opt-out. But think about what a week or two of stories like this will do. Opt-out will become synonymous with evil. Then how dows Google Book's stance to authors look? How do all their other auto-data collection techniques look? Google depends on opt-out to their very core, down to robots.txt. They can't afford public opinion to turn against that, and it's going to if they don't move fast.
    • anigbrowl 17y ago
      Entirely agree. You and I know how Google works, but most people think they either configure their servers manually or that they supervise them all in real time. It's like those stories of a dead person receiving a computer-generated bill or debtor's letter - there's no malice intended, but it makes everyone feel bad and damages the reputation of the organization involved.
    • ConceptDog 17y ago
      The majority of people don't and will never care about their privacy, particularly when connected to the internet. People who feel harmed by this will be upset and will hopefully understand that they were far more vulnerable than they believed, then take steps to insure that it doesn't happen again. Some people will feign indignation at whats happened to her, claim to be boycotting google, then abandon the prospect when they see how much of a pain it is to change to another service. Most people will never hear about this, and if they do, they won't really care. GMail works for them, they don't understand or care about their privacy. They have a service that works and is implied to be free.
• volomike 17y ago
  What I didn't like about it was that by default it let everyone in my addressbook know many of my other clients. In fact, if you're a freelancer for anything, and you want to know most of the other freelancers that your client has contacted, just click his Buzz profile. There's a profile checkbox for this but for some reason Google left that on by default! And let's say you had a bad client one day who wouldn't pay and you wanted to not deal with him. Well guess what -- he now has contact access to many of your other clients through the default settings in Buzz. Heck, I was even seeing profiles out there where I could get access to someone's doctor. I also dislike that when Buzz has a message and says (1) beside it, so does my Inbox too. I think the two should be distinctive. I ended up having to make a rule to trash anything going to my inbox beginning with "Buzz:".
  • thaumaturgy 17y ago
    Eeee-yikes. I have a number of current clients in good standing, and one "bad" client from a while back that would just love this. I've been migrating away from Google lately; the prospect of this just hurried me right along.
• zhishaosiwei 17y ago
  I like Greader. I like to comment to my notes, but I must share first then I can make comments. Why do you let me share first? why? sharing is not the nature of web!
• ashish01 17y ago
  I was also quite upset over a similar situation but now google seems to have made it easier to "block" people who follow you. As mentioned in this article http://lifehacker.com/5470104/google-updates-explains-buzz-privacy-setup http://lifehacker.com/5470104/google-updates-explains-buzz-p... Now there is a block link again anyone following you (once you unfollow them).
• jrockway 17y ago
  I don't get the outrage. Is there some flag in GMail that you flip to say "this person is stalking me, pretend they don't exist"? No. So at this point, her public comments are being shared with one of the people that she talks to the most. This is a problem, but it's not something Google could have avoided. My advice is to block this person, stop commenting on blogs if it is going to endanger her life (or use real anonynimization tools), and get a restraining order against the person she fears. People are easy to get rid of if you put enough effort into it, but what I've noticed from reading Ask Metafilter (and other things) is that people enjoy having problems and don't actually want to solve them. I feel that this person is doing the same thing, "drama drama me me me". Let the downmods begin...
  • run4yourlives 17y ago
    The default position of any social network when it comes to sharing personal information should not to, Period. All "sharing" should be based on opt-in actions and not left to being opt-out. I've fully aware that many networks including the biggies like Facebook don't follow this mantra, but personal privacy laws (such as those that exist in Canada) should exist to enforce this fact.
• gnubardt 17y ago
  Her post on rape jokes was also very good: http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/a-woman-walks-into-a-rape-uh-bar/ http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/a-woman-walks-into... A good reminder (or revelation) of why rape is never funny and should be taken seriously.
• cabalamat 17y ago
  Can anyone tell me how I can (1) get off buzz, (2) not forward anytthing from me to anyone using buzz, (3) not have buzz appear in my gmail window? I've never opted in to buzz, don't want it, and don't want anything to do with it. There doesn't appear to be any obvious setting where I can get out of it.
  • aneesh 17y ago
    At the bottom-center of your Gmail page, there is a link to "turn off buzz".
  • mbrubeck 17y ago
    First, open the "Buzz" label in GMail. Click on your list of followers and block all of them. Click on "connected sites" and remove any connections. Now edit your Google profile (if you have one) and remove any information that you don't want public (including "display my full name"): http://www.google.com/profiles/me/editprofile?edit=b http://www.google.com/profiles/me/editprofile?edit=b Finally, go to the footer of the GMail site and click "turn off Buzz."
    • stevenbedrick 17y ago
      But do make sure to do these steps in that order- clicking "turn off Buzz", as far as I can tell, only keeps you from seeing Buzz-related stuff, including the Buzz privacy and follow/follower settings. It doesn't disconnect you from those followers, hide your (by default) public or shared information, etc.
      • raganwald 17y ago
        At the risk of dredging up an extinct meme... Worst. Design Choice. Ever.
• protomyth 17y ago
  Stuff like this leads me to believe there is a pretty good business out there for a paid-by-the-user service. Google's real customers are advertisers not you.
  • Psyonic 17y ago
    I can't vouch for it, but it already exists: http://www.lavabit.com/ http://www.lavabit.com/
    • danudey 17y ago
      'Lavabit was built for people like you. People who want a fast, reliable, private POP3 e-mail account with the most advanced features.' POP3 account… with advanced features? I mean, I know they don't want to go IMAP because they don't want to store information on their servers, but it's still contradictory at first glance.
• derwiki 17y ago
  Not that I'd suggest a "run on the bank" ... but what's the easiest way to download a copy of all my GMail to load it into another service? (Linux or OS X, preferably command line util or Python script)
  • qjz 17y ago
    Gmail is accessible via IMAP: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75725 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe... Use the client of your choice to copy it to another account or download it to your computer.
    • godDLL 17y ago
      And if you have IMAP enabled, Buzz will show up there too, with replies to your posts looking like e-mails. There is a feature in Gmail Labs called "Advanced IMAP Controls", that lets you disable Buzz showing up in IMAP folders.
• karlthepagan 17y ago
  I think the biggest breach here is the forwarded emails. I have used email forwarding to maintain pseudo-anonymity (just barely, anyone with a brain can figure it out). It is a valid breach in privacy and trust. Careless on Google's part to consider that use-case.
• chubbard 17y ago
  The choice between privacy goes something like this on the internet these days. Be apart of the internet and give up all hope of privacy, or don't participate and be a Luddite. This choice is not acceptable or practical for any future. Google grossly underestimated how important privacy has become to average user in last year or two. Unfortunately this could have been the killer feature that Buzz could leverage over Facebook and Twitter because they do such a horrible job at it. In fact Facebook's take on privacy has become down right scary. Privacy controls for Buzz could have been it's differentiator. Instead it's turned into the killer mistake threatening to bury Buzz before it even got out of the gate. But, everyone screws up, everyone makes mistakes, it's all about how fast they fix it. So get some pizza, jolt, and strong coffee it should be a long weekend Google Buzz Engineers.
  • grourk 17y ago
    It's a bit unfair to say that Twitter is bad at privacy. Twitter is public by its very nature. Google Buzz seems to be the same. Don't want to participate? Turn it off. I would also disagree that Facebook's take on privacy is "downright scary," given the range of privacy settings you can choose. It's not some half-assed implementation on their part. Perhaps you take issue with the default settings? No one set of privacy options will work for everyone for any of these tools. And when you choose to use one, you're responsible for what you say and do with it. So maybe the real issue is that Google decided to enable Buzz automatically. It was a choice they made, and I don't think it was necessarily the wrong one. The only thing the Google Buzz Engineers should be working on this weekend is removing the huge lag for posts showing up in the feed.
    • chubbard 17y ago
      When the head of the company basically says people don't care as much about privacy as they once did. I call that scary. If he'd say we want you to participate fully in our service and we think that means your information is public it would be better. But, I agree with the article that Facebook is really getting it wrong. Instead of having a default how about present them with a simple dialog. Explain the issues, and ask them what settings the user wants? Share with Everyone, Share with My Friends, etc. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_sa... Then the accusations that if you or one of your friends fills out a poll your information is shared with the poll author. (As noted on Twit Podcast). So yes I think those are some scary things.
• Goronmon 17y ago
  I wonder how much of all this security stuff around Buzz comes down to users having incorrect assumptions/knowledge about how applications and software handle privacy. It seems like a poor choice to make an assumption that any given application (including one from Google) is going to be able to know what level of privacy you expect by default. Not to say that Google is blameless in this situation, as they could have done a lot more to educate potential Buzz users on privacy. However, it seems a common thread with the complains about Buzz and privacy start with someone making an incorrect assumption about how Google applications were handling their comments, shared feeds, friends, etc.
• paul9290 17y ago
  WoW by the look of all these comments made by us techies, Zuckerberg's comments "Public Is the New “Social Norm,” is so wrong! http://mashable.com/2010/01/10/facebook-founder-on-privacy/#comment-29353484 http://mashable.com/2010/01/10/facebook-founder-on-privacy/#...
• eplanit 17y ago
  Google makes money by shoving ads in your face, or charging you for their service to shove ads in others' faces. Their power in this field is their expertise in exploiting the information that people so freely hand over to them. They make no money protecting ones' privacy. If you can work your privacy into their business model, you'll have gained something. Good luck with that, though.
• datums 17y ago
  I thought about a few shitty scenarios, but this one didn't come to mind. Google calculated the risks and choose to have autofollow enabled. They knew what they were doing. I think they released it and waited and reacted. Venn diagram it, they have more users using their system because of it.
• binarycheese 17y ago
  I just found out I am following 27 people I have no idea who they are or why Google choose to make me follow them. I didn't even sign up for this Buzz thing. Google - this is really messed up!
  • godDLL 17y ago
    Yes it is, and you're not contributing to the discussion. Take a look at this guy, this is how it's done: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121239 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121239
• erratic 17y ago
  Google is rolling out new privacy tweaks directly in response to this: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-adding-two-privacy-features-in-response-to-bloggers-outrage-2010-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-adding-two-privacy-fea...
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• jagjit 17y ago
  What got me is switching buzz off does not disable people following you - you have to individually block people. They did a similar thing with searching through emails - there was no option to disable that feature. It is like Google is saying - "We give you free services, so now we own all your data. And just so you know, we don't do evil - so pls don't judge." Must be funny in the rich man's world. They are wasting away shareholders' profit share in their hubris or competitive fear.
• invisible 17y ago
  There needs to be a "make them person stop following me" option so I don't feel like such a dick when I block people. What's so wrong about that option? Also, why can't I block/force someone to stop following me if they don't have a google profile? What?
• donaq 17y ago
  Well, Google followed up on it and she wrote another post about that. http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/screw-you-google/ http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/screw-you-google/
  • godDLL 17y ago
    > This blog is protected, to view it you must log in. < I have a Wordpress account, but it doesn't seem to bring down the wall for me. Can you please quote an excerpt?
    • donaq 17y ago
      Huh. Sorry, I can't access it now either.
• Groxx 17y ago
  Hopefully Google is following some of these complaints. Personally, I'm adding feedback on their "disabling Buzz" help page: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=171460 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe... They're doing serious damage to their image with this. I hope they wake up soon.
• madars 17y ago
  It seems it was pulled of the Internet, here's a copy - http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/329/harrietjacobsfuckyougoo.png http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/329/harrietjacobsfuckyougoo...
• godDLL 17y ago
  Official Google statement issued to businessinsider.com: > We reached out to blogger in question this morning and addressed her concerns with Google Buzz and Google Reader. Some of the concerns were due to confusion the product experience created. Her report also helped us discover one bug and one product issue in Google Reader: > 1) If you block people in Buzz, they still show up as following you in Reader. This is a bug, and we're working to fix it. Provided that your Google Reader shared items are protected, only the people you've explicitly allowed to see them can do so -- regardless of who appears to be following you in Reader. > 2) Until now, there has not been functionality to block people from following you in Google Reader. We're adding this to the Reader interface. > We are making these two changes as fast as possible and we'll get them live in the next few days. Archived copy of the article in question: http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/329/harrietjacobsfuckyougoo.png http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/329/harrietjacobsfuckyougoo...
• godDLL 17y ago
  Google adds opt-in on sign-up, and easy opt-out later ("Disable Google Buzz Completely" in Gmail settings): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1123873 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1123873