The Google Buzz name suggests the sound of flying insects, but are those insects attracted to the honey of a great new social-networking tool, or to something else that flies are known for lighting on? After a launch designed to show that Google was aiming straight for Facebook, the buzz has become a cacophony of complaints, not excitement.
Google has been backpedaling since its Feb. 9 launch, trying to address users’ privacy concerns. Just two days after the launch, Google announced it would stop automatically displaying lists of followers, make it possible to block followers without profiles, and making it more apparent which followers appear on your Buzz profile.
Buzzing Off
Now Google has enabled two ways for users to disable Buzz. In Gmail, there’s a new tab in settings which allows users to hide Buzz from view or totally disable the service. “Do not show Google Buzz in Gmail” only hides the Buzz tab in Gmail. “You’ll still be able to use Buzz on your phone. Your connected sites will continue to create new posts in Google Buzz,” the setting says.
A separate option totally disables Buzz and comes with this warning: “You are about to delete your public profile, including any Buzz posts you have made and your connected sites settings. Your personal profile information will be permanently removed from our system.” Yet another checkbox serves to unfollow anyone being followed in Buzz and Reader.
Such privacy settings are unlikely to assuage critics like “Harriet Jacobs,” the pseudonym of a woman who says Buzz exposed her contact information to her abusive ex-husband. “I use my private Gmail account to e-mail my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other ‘most frequent’ contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is? My abusive ex-husband,” she wrote…