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Google Buzz — First Reactions
Google announced Buzz today, as we anticipated this morning. CNET has a workmanlike description of the social-networking service, which is integrated into gmail. CNET identifies a central obstacle Buzz will have to overcome to gain traction: "The problem, however, will be the increasing backlash Google is seeing from the general public over how much data the company already controls on their online habits." Buzz is being rolled out over the next few days so some people will see a Buzz folder in their gmail, but most won't yet (this Twitter post explains how Safari users can get an early glimpse). A blog posting up at O'Reilly Answers points out some of the distinguishing characteristics of Google Buzz — one interesting one being its ability to post an update either publicly or privately, at the user's option. This design choice places it between the public-by-default Twitter and the private-by-default Facebook. Lauren Weinstein sounds a note of caution about the inherent privacy risks of Google's method of filling out initial friend profiles by automatic friending.
Bad form to double reply but you do realize they are competing against Facebook here! They sure as fuck are worse about privacy than Google has ever been. And twitter is purely about announcing things publicly to the universe. Not reallllly an issue here. And if you needed a reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoWKGBloMsU .. he basically says that privacy isn't what people want so we aren't giving it to them...
Read what he said - his exact words were "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,", not "If you're committing a crime ...".
Think of all the personal things you do every day that are just nobody's business. Like what you watch on TV, or what you look at on the Internet, or who you had supper with, or your last meeting with your doctor or lawyer or clergycritter ...
Schmidt thinks that your data, in his hands, is HIS data.