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> they casually handed a privacy-invading gun to people and invited them to fire it They didn't invite them to fire, they forced them to fire. It's quite diffe

• bonaldi 17y ago
  No, they didn't. People think that the "want to find out more?" screen was the opt-in point, but it wasn't. The opt-in point was when you made your first Buzz post, when you were told this meant creating a public Google profile. There are millions of gmail users who haven't done this, and consequently have no public profile, and no information exposed. Users were not forced into anything. Buzz is there and inviting, sure, but I read the screen and was well aware of what would happen. (Compare Facebook, which did recently force its users into publicising their names, small profile image and contacts list, with nary a whimper. It was a much more complicated opt-out box, too)
  • orangecat 17y ago
    It was not at all obvious that "create a public profile" was equivalent to "make public the people who I frequently email". Certainly it's much more complex than telling the difference between ReadWriteWeb and Facebook, in which case there was a great deal of sympathy for the clueless users.
    • bonaldi 17y ago
      Yes, and I think Google was too cavalier in how they flagged that up -- the current revisions are much better. But nonetheless, it doesn't mean they forced people's data public, and it doesn't mean the NYT should have reported that as fact, as Winer demands. It's more nuanced than that, and only hit-seeking shouty tech blogs are saying otherwise. It'd be a disservice to their readers and the truth for the NYT to take their piece to the same histronic level as this link.