It’s been several weeks now since the disastrous rollout of Google Buzz’s initial social networking platform. It was on February 9th that Google Buzz unleashed its newest foray into social media to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.According to a post on Google’s Official Blog at the time, Buzz was touted as a service that was built “right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch… Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email with and chat with the most.”And therein lies the problem… Almost immediately, Buzz was lambasted for taking huge liberties with Gmail users’ privacy. By default, the Gmail contacts of each new Buzz user were made publicly available in their Google profiles for the world to see. The Buzz-o-sphere even included “follow” links, which meant that any prying snoop could harvest the contact lists of other Buzz users as well.
biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/30/google-buzz-privacy-flaw-snags-another-victim-white-house-deputy-cto-andrew-mclaughlin/
Google Buzz Privacy Flaw Snags Another Victim: White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin
It’s been several weeks now since the disastrous rollout of Google Buzz’s initial social networking platform. It was on February 9th that Google Buzz unleashed its newest foray into social media to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.