Just three days after Google launched its answer to Facebook and Twitter, the search giant announced changes in Google Buzz to address some privacy concerns.
The option to share Gmail information with other users is still the default setting, but the box to uncheck for more privacy has now been added more prominently to the Google profile that users must have to use the service. If they don’t uncheck, anyone who searches a user’s name or e-mail can have access to the user’s most frequent contacts.
In another change, Buzzers who show up in the list of followers now have an easy “block” button next to their names. And in the third modification, only those who have created a public profile will appear on a user’s list of followers. Previously, the service listed public profiles as well as previous Gmail contacts who may later create a public profile.
Unchanged is the fact that Gmail users are essentially opted into the service without consent. To completely opt out of Buzz, Gmail users must delete their Google profile, block all the followers they have picked up, and then click on the “turn off Buzz” link at the bottom of the Gmail in-box.
“I think they addressed some, but not all of the problems,” said Ryan Calo, an expert in Internet privacy at Stanford University. “I’m concerned about formerly private things becoming public without the user understanding that your Google Chat status will be available, where it was not before.”
The third largest e-mail service in the United States, Gmail has an estimated 143 million users. Those who also utilize Google Reader, which shares web sites, and Picassa, which shares photo albums, will find that items they have marked public are automatically posted as part of their news feed. Users’ chat statuses are also automatically linked so…