Google’s new service, Buzz, has the potential to be the next big thing in social media.
Buzz, which was released Tuesday, is a service provided to all Gmail account holders. It allows users to share status updates, photos, links and videos, just like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, Buzz lets people import items from their Twitter and Flickr accounts, as well as several other social Web sites.
Unlike most other social networking sites, however, Buzz defaults to public posts that anyone can view, not private ones aimed specifically at your friends. Google automatically suggests that each Buzz user separate groups of followers and people to follow, using a networking technique more like Twitter than Facebook.
While it is possible to block people from following you after they start, there is no approval process (like Facebook’s “confirm as friend” option) through which users can vet who gets their personal buzzes (status updates) before they start receiving them.
But perhaps the most privacy-jeopardizing feature Buzz includes is the ability for users to post location-tagged messages from their cell phones.
Since a user’s buzzes are made public unless otherwise marked, anyone who looks at that person’s Google profile or happens to be nearby will be able to easily see what they have to say about a specific location. Anyone who has a Google profile page can display the people they follow and those who follow them on Buzz.
Written in the Buzz privacy policy is the disclaimer, “If you are following someone who publicly displays their list of followers on their Google profile, then you will appear on that person’s public list. Likewise, if someone is following you and displays the list of people they follow on their profile, then you will appear on that public list.”
While each user can decide whether to display their followers and who they follow, the policy does not provide any way for a person to avoid having their name shown on others’ lists. In this respect, the right to control one’s privacy is out of individuals’ hands and in the hands of others.
Between blogs, Facebook, MySpace and various other social media Web sites, there are few people who do not have some sort of searchable presence online. Buzz simply makes this presence more obvious and easier to find.
Before users post their first buzz, Google requires that they set up a publicly searchable profile page.
True privacy is becoming more and more a thing of the past; that is by no means a good thing.
Casey Goodwin is an engineering freshman and may be reached at [email protected]
