4 ms·

Tell HN: Warning, Google ignores opt-out for Buzz if you set an away message

32 points by yalurker 17y ago

Well, my opinion of Buzz just did a 180. When it first asked me to join I opted out and moved on. I didn't see the big deal for privacy concerns, since I could easily opt out and never use it. Today, I set a status message for google chat as an away message, and suddenly I was auto-enrolled into buzz. My away message was published as a status update, I had followers auto configured, the whole deal. I think I've successfully killed it now, but already my privacy has been lost (just the auto-follow behavior exposes who I chat/email with through gmail). So a warning to other HN readers: be wary in using google chat status updates, or you may find yourself enabling buzz even after explicitly opting out. And if anyone from google is reading this: No means no. If you enable buzz after I explicitly say no, then you just buzz-raped your user.

CoryMathews 17y ago
This whole buzz thing has send me looking for a new email provider. If they so eagerly give out all my contacts what else are they doing or whats next? The last couple months have been enough for me to start my move away from google.
- jhancock 17y ago
  If you come up with a short list of alternate email providers, please post as I'm in the same boat for this and other reasons.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - andrewcooke 17y ago
    see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121269
scott_s 17y ago
My understanding is that you did not opt out of Buzz. What you said "no" to was taking the tour of Buzz - but you were still auto-enrolled. Hence the fuss.
- wgj 17y ago
  That's just as bad or worse, if a tech savvy user can come to this kind of erroneous conclusion.
ekiru 17y ago
That's odd. I even opted in for Buzz but never created a public profile due to privacy concerns, and my chat status updates aren't be posted on Buzz(although when I looked in the linked sites dialog to see if it should be, I noticed that while Google Chat status updates were not linked, Picasa and Reader were(conveniently, I don't use Picasa and I use Reader exclusively for reading), although it said that they would not be actually linked until some further step was taken).
jameskilton 17y ago
So I've yet to create a Google public profile but I just saw a very disturbing "feature" related to Buzz. To make sure that I was safe from Buzz, I enabled it and unfollowed everyone it automatically made me follow, then turned it off again. But then I went to my Google Reader page, and my "People you follow" list was now completely empty. Google has hooked up sharing between everything with Buzz, and that's not cool. Wow. I'm starting to wonder if I should also start looking for alternatives.
- natrius 17y ago
  Are you sure it automatically followed people you weren't already following on Reader? If they were, the behavior makes sense.
aw3c2 17y ago
I am so glad people finally start seeing Google for what it is. A huge evil (at least explicetely not "do no evil") corporation with a dangerous market majority on many things on the internet. Embrace alternatives!
- buster 17y ago
  While the launch of buzz really is a big disaster, i still think most of the errors that were made, were not because of a manager saying "hey, great, lets publish all privacy information of our users to the internet, thats a great business model!" (think of it, the users data is probably the most valuable data an internet company has today). It looks to me, as if a team had a good idea (yes, i think buzz as an idea is a good idea, the launch was not) but it was not properly tested and thought of such cases. All in all it was released far too early for far too many people. I still wonder why they didn't roll out buzz on an invite only base like they did with gmail. All this negative press could've been avoided and most people would be like "yay, thats cool!" without the "oh shit"-effect. But that attitude that google fucked up your privacy on intent is just stupid. I agree, Googles power is scary: Think of it, google may control a lot of users internet experience from end-to-end in the future (ISP->Search->Mail->Mobile->Android->Netbooks+advertising = omg, scary!). They will eventually end up being split into many companies if the trend continues. But to say they fucked up your privacy on intent is just wrong, imo. Thanks for the upcoming downvotes in advance, because i don't just repeat what every little blog is already writing over and over again.
  - danudey 17y ago
    > It looks to me, as if a team had a good idea (yes, i think buzz as an idea is a good idea, > the launch was not) but it was not properly tested and thought of such cases. I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I feel they're evil. They believed that their idea was a good one, and so forced it on everyone without bothered to test it. Even if you don't attribute their mistakes to malice, the other option is to concede that they were 'merely' careless and reckless with our personal, private data. My issue with Google isn't all the privacy issues around Buzz, it's that all the privacy issues around Buzz came after no outside testing, and with no choice on the end-user's part. They made a string of assumptions that turned out to be false in a not-insignificant number of cases, because no one thought 'hey, maybe we should ask people before we give other people information about them.'
fnid2 17y ago
wow. i am so glad I haven't logged into any google products since they launched this. I may create brand new accounts. I don't use gmail, thank goodness! I knew my reluctance to use Google products would pay dividends.
- JeremyBanks 17y ago
  You seem very relived. Would this have actually directly negatively affected you?
  - fnid2 17y ago
    Who knows? It has negatively affected others already.
    - JeremyBanks 17y ago
      Sure, but those were uncommon circumstances. I'm not denying that Google deserves a ton of shit for this, but I don't think it's the kind of thing that had much of a chance of negatively affecting the average user.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
carbon8 17y ago
Out of curiosity, I just tried it on an account with an existing Google Profile that doesn't have buzz set up and it did not add followers/followings to the existing Google Profile. It added the status message to the buzz feed, which isn't a privacy problem since contacts can see it anyway, but it did not fully set up a buzz profile. Clicking on the Buzz status textarea brings up the normal "How do you want to appear to others?" form and still won't let me use Buzz without setting it up. Also, I can't see the following/follower lists from another account; it just shows the name, a link to the google profile and the fact that the two accounts are following each other, but nothing about any other contacts. It does, however, appear that the profile is fully set up from within the account, showing the follower/following lists, but outside accounts can't see this info. I also follow someone who hasn't created a Google profile or started using Buzz. She changed her status message and it showed up in the Buzz feed, but when I click on her name it goes to an empty Buzz profile view that says "This person does not have a public profile." where the name usually is. TL/DR: I looked at accounts both with and without an existing Google Profile and although a status message change is posted to the Buzz feed, in neither case did it fully sign the account up for Buzz nor did it expose contacts, despite the fact that it looks like it does. YMMV, but probably not.
- yalurker 17y ago
  Very good information. I didn't do any verification from outside accounts, I just started immediately trying to stop/undo.
  - carbon8 17y ago
    Yeah, it's tremendously confusing. As far as I can tell, looking at it from another account is the only way to know that the profile doesn't actually show the following/follower information publicly. It really shouldn't require an in-depth, multi-person investigation to figure out what's public and what isn't.
blueag 17y ago
I've disabled both Chat and Buzz as now. Chat used to be there as a benign thing since I don't use it. Since the Buzz forced activation, I've gone through to disable all Google apps that I don't care.
robotron 17y ago
Doesn't this really belong in a bug report somewhere?
s3graham 17y ago
I feel like the only person not pissed off about Buzz. Email contacts might seed your connections, but I have followers and followees that I've never spoken a private word to in person or via email. Honest question: what information is it that people feel is leaking, other than "I clicked 'Follow' on this person's profile"?
lftl 17y ago
I think the biggest failure of Buzz is how confusing it is. I think this is one of the most misunderstood products that has ever been launched. I honestly believe about 90% of the complaints we've seen are misunderstandings of how Buzz works, and how the information that it sets up looks to other people. For example, in my experience the autofollow doesn't reveal nearly as much information as some people expect: 1) It doesn't reveal anything if the person you autofollowed doesn't have a public google profile. 2) It never reveals the email address to anyone who already didn't know it 3) It doesn't really reveal on what level you have any contact with the person, because an outside observer has no idea whether you autofollowed this person or chose to follow them. For example, about 50% of the people I'm following I've never emailed before (and I still don't know their email address even though I've communicated with them through Buzz now). There are some privacy issues with Buzz, but more than anything its biggest failure is being confusing.
- torial 17y ago
  I'd say the biggest failure is autoenrolling you, and then setting certain things public. Sure they could see my gtalk status, but I never set anything up to let my Reader be public, but it was by default. If I want people to know what I'm reading, I'll tell them!
  - lftl 17y ago
    This is one of the other points I think is confusing. What exactly is being shared out of reader? I use reader, I've got it linked to my profile, but when I view my profile as an anonymous user it just says no shared items. I never used the sharing feature of Reader before, so I really have no clue what it did previously. Is that was was shared automatically on enroll? I definitely don't see any way for anyone to see what feeds are in my reader.
csomar 17y ago
Strange, Google asked me what feeds I want to include in Buzz and one of the feeds was Gtalk Status, so are you sure you didn't select this one (for me, it was unselected by default). If you didn't, then it become really serious.
- torial 17y ago
  I ran into this -- thought I had opted out (turns out only of the tour), then because of this post, I check the Buzz settings. Reader and Gtalk statuses were shared by default. And I was already following others (presumably they were unaware their info was being shared).

32 points by yalurker 17y ago

CoryMathews 17y ago

This whole buzz thing has send me looking for a new email provider. If they so eagerly give out all my contacts what else are they doing or whats next? The last couple months have been enough for me to start my move away from google.

jhancock 17y ago
If you come up with a short list of alternate email providers, please post as I'm in the same boat for this and other reasons.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121269

scott_s 17y ago

My understanding is that you did not opt out of Buzz. What you said "no" to was taking the tour of Buzz - but you were still auto-enrolled. Hence the fuss.

wgj 17y ago
That's just as bad or worse, if a tech savvy user can come to this kind of erroneous conclusion.

ekiru 17y ago

That's odd. I even opted in for Buzz but never created a public profile due to privacy concerns, and my chat status updates aren't be posted on Buzz(although when I looked in the linked sites dialog to see if it should be, I noticed that while Google Chat status updates were not linked, Picasa and Reader were(conveniently, I don't use Picasa and I use Reader exclusively for reading), although it said that they would not be actually linked until some further step was taken).

jameskilton 17y ago

So I've yet to create a Google public profile but I just saw a very disturbing "feature" related to Buzz. To make sure that I was safe from Buzz, I enabled it and unfollowed everyone it automatically made me follow, then turned it off again. But then I went to my Google Reader page, and my "People you follow" list was now completely empty. Google has hooked up sharing between everything with Buzz, and that's not cool. Wow. I'm starting to wonder if I should also start looking for alternatives.

natrius 17y ago
Are you sure it automatically followed people you weren't already following on Reader? If they were, the behavior makes sense.

aw3c2 17y ago

I am so glad people finally start seeing Google for what it is. A huge evil (at least explicetely not "do no evil") corporation with a dangerous market majority on many things on the internet. Embrace alternatives!

buster 17y ago
While the launch of buzz really is a big disaster, i still think most of the errors that were made, were not because of a manager saying "hey, great, lets publish all privacy information of our users to the internet, thats a great business model!" (think of it, the users data is probably the most valuable data an internet company has today). It looks to me, as if a team had a good idea (yes, i think buzz as an idea is a good idea, the launch was not) but it was not properly tested and thought of such cases. All in all it was released far too early for far too many people. I still wonder why they didn't roll out buzz on an invite only base like they did with gmail. All this negative press could've been avoided and most people would be like "yay, thats cool!" without the "oh shit"-effect. But that attitude that google fucked up your privacy on intent is just stupid. I agree, Googles power is scary: Think of it, google may control a lot of users internet experience from end-to-end in the future (ISP->Search->Mail->Mobile->Android->Netbooks+advertising = omg, scary!). They will eventually end up being split into many companies if the trend continues. But to say they fucked up your privacy on intent is just wrong, imo. Thanks for the upcoming downvotes in advance, because i don't just repeat what every little blog is already writing over and over again.
- danudey 17y ago
  > It looks to me, as if a team had a good idea (yes, i think buzz as an idea is a good idea, > the launch was not) but it was not properly tested and thought of such cases. I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I feel they're evil. They believed that their idea was a good one, and so forced it on everyone without bothered to test it. Even if you don't attribute their mistakes to malice, the other option is to concede that they were 'merely' careless and reckless with our personal, private data. My issue with Google isn't all the privacy issues around Buzz, it's that all the privacy issues around Buzz came after no outside testing, and with no choice on the end-user's part. They made a string of assumptions that turned out to be false in a not-insignificant number of cases, because no one thought 'hey, maybe we should ask people before we give other people information about them.'

fnid2 17y ago

wow. i am so glad I haven't logged into any google products since they launched this. I may create brand new accounts. I don't use gmail, thank goodness! I knew my reluctance to use Google products would pay dividends.

JeremyBanks 17y ago
You seem very relived. Would this have actually directly negatively affected you?
- fnid2 17y ago
  Who knows? It has negatively affected others already.
  - JeremyBanks 17y ago
    Sure, but those were uncommon circumstances. I'm not denying that Google deserves a ton of shit for this, but I don't think it's the kind of thing that had much of a chance of negatively affecting the average user.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

carbon8 17y ago

Out of curiosity, I just tried it on an account with an existing Google Profile that doesn't have buzz set up and it did not add followers/followings to the existing Google Profile. It added the status message to the buzz feed, which isn't a privacy problem since contacts can see it anyway, but it did not fully set up a buzz profile. Clicking on the Buzz status textarea brings up the normal "How do you want to appear to others?" form and still won't let me use Buzz without setting it up. Also, I can't see the following/follower lists from another account; it just shows the name, a link to the google profile and the fact that the two accounts are following each other, but nothing about any other contacts. It does, however, appear that the profile is fully set up from within the account, showing the follower/following lists, but outside accounts can't see this info. I also follow someone who hasn't created a Google profile or started using Buzz. She changed her status message and it showed up in the Buzz feed, but when I click on her name it goes to an empty Buzz profile view that says "This person does not have a public profile." where the name usually is. TL/DR: I looked at accounts both with and without an existing Google Profile and although a status message change is posted to the Buzz feed, in neither case did it fully sign the account up for Buzz nor did it expose contacts, despite the fact that it looks like it does. YMMV, but probably not.

yalurker 17y ago
Very good information. I didn't do any verification from outside accounts, I just started immediately trying to stop/undo.
- carbon8 17y ago
  Yeah, it's tremendously confusing. As far as I can tell, looking at it from another account is the only way to know that the profile doesn't actually show the following/follower information publicly. It really shouldn't require an in-depth, multi-person investigation to figure out what's public and what isn't.

blueag 17y ago

I've disabled both Chat and Buzz as now. Chat used to be there as a benign thing since I don't use it. Since the Buzz forced activation, I've gone through to disable all Google apps that I don't care.

robotron 17y ago

Doesn't this really belong in a bug report somewhere?

s3graham 17y ago

I feel like the only person not pissed off about Buzz. Email contacts might seed your connections, but I have followers and followees that I've never spoken a private word to in person or via email. Honest question: what information is it that people feel is leaking, other than "I clicked 'Follow' on this person's profile"?

lftl 17y ago

I think the biggest failure of Buzz is how confusing it is. I think this is one of the most misunderstood products that has ever been launched. I honestly believe about 90% of the complaints we've seen are misunderstandings of how Buzz works, and how the information that it sets up looks to other people. For example, in my experience the autofollow doesn't reveal nearly as much information as some people expect: 1) It doesn't reveal anything if the person you autofollowed doesn't have a public google profile. 2) It never reveals the email address to anyone who already didn't know it 3) It doesn't really reveal on what level you have any contact with the person, because an outside observer has no idea whether you autofollowed this person or chose to follow them. For example, about 50% of the people I'm following I've never emailed before (and I still don't know their email address even though I've communicated with them through Buzz now). There are some privacy issues with Buzz, but more than anything its biggest failure is being confusing.

torial 17y ago
I'd say the biggest failure is autoenrolling you, and then setting certain things public. Sure they could see my gtalk status, but I never set anything up to let my Reader be public, but it was by default. If I want people to know what I'm reading, I'll tell them!
- lftl 17y ago
  This is one of the other points I think is confusing. What exactly is being shared out of reader? I use reader, I've got it linked to my profile, but when I view my profile as an anonymous user it just says no shared items. I never used the sharing feature of Reader before, so I really have no clue what it did previously. Is that was was shared automatically on enroll? I definitely don't see any way for anyone to see what feeds are in my reader.

csomar 17y ago

Strange, Google asked me what feeds I want to include in Buzz and one of the feeds was Gtalk Status, so are you sure you didn't select this one (for me, it was unselected by default). If you didn't, then it become really serious.

torial 17y ago
I ran into this -- thought I had opted out (turns out only of the tour), then because of this post, I check the Buzz settings. Reader and Gtalk statuses were shared by default. And I was already following others (presumably they were unaware their info was being shared).