Google will soon ask early Buzz users to re-confirm their decisions to auto-follow people in their contact list and whether they want to publish those lists to the world. It's a further step in its quest quiet the privacy storm that erupted when Google decided to turn Gmail into a social networking application two weeks ago.
Buzz lets users publish updates and photos to groups of fellow Gmail user or publicly to the web, and lets others comment on them. Public posts go up on a user's Google Profile page, while private ones are read and commented on inside of Gmail. That makes Buzz a sort of hybrid between Facebook's more closed social network model and Twitter's focus on more public posts.
But many users were turned off by Google's decision to auto-generate social networks for users, based on who they communicated the most with on Gmail. Compounding that, Google decided that those lists would be published by default when users set up their profile accounts, meaning users had to unclick a box to keep that list private. While users had to decide to make a public profile and turn on Buzz in order to have their follower lists made public, many expressed outrage that Google was putting the contact list of domestic violence victims, journalists and political dissidents at risk.
Google apologized and quickly retreated. It changed a number of defaults, most notably making the list of followers into a suggested list, that users had to decide to accept, and making the checkbox for making follower/following lists more obvious (though the default stays public).
But Buzz's privacy woes have yet to subside. Last week, the search and ad giant decided it would make early users go through the same confirmation screen that current users do, a Google employee told Wired.com. The aim is to make sure that no users are unaware that their contact lists are public
The same Google employee noted the irony that Facebook grew by leaps and bounds by asking its users to give Facebook access to their Gmail contact lists, in order to find people to add as friends or to invite to join Facebook.
Facebook also removed the option to keep one's Friends list private in December, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked up to evolving privacy mores.
Oddly, those concerned about privacy and social networking have overlooked a feature unique to Google Buzz. Last year, Gmail accounts defaulted to using HTTPS connections for e-mail sessions, which carries over to Buzz. That means that all non-public Buzz conversations are extremely difficult for eavesdroppers, whether they be overeager IT administrators at schools or businesses, Wi-Fi sniffers or governments monitoring IP packets for banned keywords.
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