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The buzz on Google’s arrogant goof

I didn’t pay much attention earlier this week when Google announced Buzz. Didn’t get too flapped when the t00bz immediately started buzzing with complaints about privacy, either.

Yawn, what else is new? Privacy horror stories are par for the course for social-networking sites, and aside from that, those sites are mostly boring as dirt. (Who wants to know about other people’s trivial daily activities?)

But I’m thinking this new Google mess — even after the alleged fixes — is a different order of magnitude. The former “do no evil” people did four really evil things:

  1. They forced a Buzz account on every gmail user without asking. Tacky.
  2. They pre-selected “followers” for every new Buzz account. Max tacky. If they wanted to jump-start the service, they could easily have presented a list of suggested contacts and allowed the account owner to approve or block individuals. *
  3. They — OMG! — chose those followers by analyzing whom gmail users have been privately corresponding with.
  4. And — OMG, OMG! — they made all the follower lists public by default.

All the net-yammer seems to be about the latter two. Perhaps rightly so. People checking their new Buzz accounts have discovered themselves linked (as follower or followed) by their landlords, strangers they contacted once through Craigslist, and in one quickly famous case, an abusive ex-spouse. Lovely.

Psychiatrists may have their patients publicly listed as followers. Investigative reporters and bloggers may have their sources revealed to the world, and so on. Yeah, that’ll go over real big, especially in third-world countries where they “disappear” people for that sort of activity.

So sure, evil acts 3 & 4 are killer bad.

But more fundamentally, the entire process of imposing accounts and contact lists on the unwilling, even if they hadn’t also pillaged privacy, is so high-handed that it speaks volumes about the mindset that controls the Google empire. Who do they think they are forcing all that crap on people — a government?

Google’s alleged fixes all involve making it easier to find opt-out options. But reading their official releases, it’s stunning how vastly they’ve missed the point and it’s horrifying that they’re attempting to spin this as some minor technical glitchette.

From there, things just get worse.

It appears that no matter how diligently you hide your contacts, you have absolutely no control over how others choose to violate your privacy. If they’ve got you on their lists and they keep their lists public, you’re screwed unless you can manage to remove yourself or them as followers (something many people are having trouble doing).

Furthermore, it appears that any time you post to Buzz, your post becomes public and searchable by default, unless you explicitly make it private. Another completely bassackwards feature.

When gmail was first set up, I swore I’d never correspond with anyone who used it because of its built-in tracking of message content.

Unfortunately, five or six people very close to me opted to use gmail, and I couldn’t cut off all contact with them. I comforted myself that nearly all correspondence between us is encrypted.

When the Buzz buzz finally got through my skull, I was worried that my emphatically non-gmail address might have been compromised. But it seems not. Google is only compromising other gmail users — who are then compromising each other.

The process is quite arbitrary, too. I checked with one gmail-using friend who said the only follower Google had chosen for her was a person she used to have business contacts with. Her best friend, also a gmail user, with whom she regularly corresponds, wasn’t listed. So it’s weird.

I’ve never been a Google-basher, although I’ve been increasingly uneasy with everything the company does. I still think they run a good, lean, useful search engine. But the Buzz fracas is the final straw.

Time to dump Google.

StartPage is every bit as good a search engine and is a sterling protector of privacy.

There are other email services aplenty.

Maps you can get from MapQuest

Those creepy Big Brother arial and street-level photos? Who needs ’em?

Google might want to act like a government, but it doesn’t have a governmental monopoly. So we can all chuck it. Please, if you care about privacy, do.

If you have to stick with Google, here’s some advice on how to turn off the worst features. And keep in mind that this situation, Google’s fixes, and information about the mess, are still evolving.

* Note, as of this evening, Google has switched to the suggestion model. Why they didn’t do this in the first place, who knows. But at least the action shows that, unlike a government, Google actually listens to its critics.

11 Comments

  1. Mike
    Mike February 14, 2010 4:21 am

    Since I tried this Startpage I am having all kinds of problems with cookies in Google Chrome. It will no longer accept them at all, which makes it a nightmare to try and log in to sites.

    I have cleared the cache and all cookies but Chrome still won’t accept any new cookies.

    As Startpage is the only ‘privacy’ based tool I have used in the last few hours I won’t be recommending it until I work out if it is the cause of my problems which only came about after using it.

    I am not impressed with Google, seen as power tends to lead to abuse, and Google is becoming ever more powerful – but at least it works.

  2. Claire
    Claire February 14, 2010 6:06 am

    Mike, I’m sorry you’re having that problem and I hope StartPage had nothing to do with it. I have no experience with Chrome. I’ve used StartPage on Firefox and Opera with zero problems. But if as you work the problem out you conclude that StartPage is a culprit, I hope you’ll give the company a heads-up.

  3. Pat
    Pat February 14, 2010 6:45 am

    Is it possible the problem is not StartPage, but Google?

    Google doesn’t work well with ANY program or computer that tries to be private. I have trouble with Google Search (on both IE and Firefox); it is very “grabby” about all cookies, and won’t find or open many websites because my computer is tight on security.

    Now I only use Yahoo Search — in fact, won’t use Google at all for anything, and don’t accept its toolbar on my computer.

    I’ve been thinking about adding StartPage.

  4. Mike
    Mike February 14, 2010 8:09 am

    @Pat

    It could be Chrome, I am running the developer version (being on Linux I have no choice), but I can only say I have had no trouble at all with it over the last couple of months until after I visited Startpage.

    When I try to ‘turn on’ accepting cookies it simply keeps blanking out the option, even if I restart the browser. It could be Chrome that’s buggy or it could be Startpage settings that have tried to tweak cookie management for privacy and failed.

    I’m back on Firefox at the moment, but I’m reluctant to try it on Startpage to see if it has the same problem as then I’ll be browser-less – a terrible situation to find yourself in for a digital hermit like me.

    I’ve shouted copious amounts of abuse and bad language at Chrome but it still refuses to play with me. I may try emailing support at both Startpage and Chrome to see what they say, but I can guess that they will both blame the other party for causing the trouble. So I may take the easy option of ‘a plague on both their houses’ and stay on Firefox.

    PS I noticed Google had issued some more privacy updates for Buzz last night on one of their blogs:
    http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-buzz-start-up-experience-based-on.html

  5. Claire
    Claire February 14, 2010 9:14 am

    Good luck, Mike. I hope your need for cussing is soon over. I know the fear of being browserless. I always keep a couple of spare browsers on my system just in case. (And I’ve found that I often have to use Opera because the security add-ons I’ve loaded Firefox with sometimes keep me from doing things even after I grant all permissions for pop-ups, javascript, etc.)

    Thanks for the Google update. Yep, that’s an improvement — though I’m still disgusted by their tone. Rather than coming out and saying, “Boy, did we goof, but now that you’ve told us so, we’re fixing things as fast as we can,” their entire attitude seems to be, “Because some users misunderstood our intentions or jumped to unwarranted conclusions, we’re making some tweaks to enhance the Buzz experience.” Just reinforces my view of their arrogance, though I give them points for a quick response.

    Totally wrong approach — especially to take with ‘Net geeks who expect one hell of a lot more honesty.

    One random thought on Chrome … I know little about it. But if I were thinking in a conspiratorial way, I might say, “Hm … Google’s browser … might it just sabotage your attempt to switch from Google’s search engine?” But that would be a little paranoid, wouldn’t it? 🙂

  6. theotherryan
    theotherryan February 14, 2010 9:53 am

    I didn’t know about this whole thing. Thanks for the update. Since google is who my blog is through I am sorta stuck. I use the gmail associated with it for blog stuff which increasingly is becoming a bigger part of my life. I did get onto this ‘buzz’ thing and delete the links to my other random google products.

  7. Winston
    Winston February 14, 2010 1:01 pm

    Huh, well I created this email adress as a throwaway, so I’m gonna do just that…throw it away. And I’m dropping yahoo! too. I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll start using hushmail full time.

    I have been using a pretty cool search engine:

    https://ssl.scroogle.org

    Basically, you type in a search and they search it through google for you, all proxified and stuff, in order to mess up all their datamining and keep you from getting their lovely tracking cookies. Plus their website has a “screw google and the people who own it” attitude that I love complete with wacky anti-google image macros everywhere, most of which I don’t quite get.

  8. Keith
    Keith February 14, 2010 7:27 pm

    http://www.scroogle.org/ is a nice way to enjoy google search results w/o the google ‘tracking’

  9. Gary
    Gary February 14, 2010 10:51 pm

    As with both Winston and Keith, I use scroogle.org as my search engine. Very happy with it. I use it through Fire Fox.

  10. The Buzz on Google’s Arrogant Goof - Reboot The Republic
    The Buzz on Google’s Arrogant Goof - Reboot The Republic February 15, 2010 2:32 pm

    […] The Buzz on Google’s Arrogant Goof Posted by admin | Filed under Orwell | Feb 15, 2010 | No CommentsFrom Living Freedom […]

  11. Ellendra
    Ellendra March 1, 2010 3:13 pm

    Always, always, always use a fake name when corresponding online! The value of a good screen name cannot be overstated.

    Anyone who tries to find out about the real-life me online, will never find anything that Ellendra does. And anyone who tries to trace the real me by searching under the name “Ellendra”, will only find its a popular name among elves :p

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