

Disabling Google Buzz: How to purge your profile - dailo10
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10451703-2.html

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jazzychad
So, does this prevent people from following me after I go through these steps?
Or will I have to periodically purge everything again?

On a side note, as I was purging my lists today, I found that Picasa had
magically been re-added to the list of my shared sites after I explicitly
removed it yesterday morning. What is going on here?

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aswanson
What seems to be going on is that Google was never trustworthy and is being
considerate enough to finally broadcast that fact. Too bad they have 10 years
of query data on me tied to my email account. [EDIT: Capitalization and verb
congruence]

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FluidDjango
Friends don't let friends browse while logged in to google/gmail.

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aswanson
And it's not like they're clever enough to track ip addresses and cookies or
anything.

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bilbo0s
Wait...you mean 'Turn Off Buzz', doesn't really turn off Buzz!

Aaarrrgh!

That's the last time I 'try out' a Google product. From now on I test their
crap on a junk account that I'll create in GMail.

Thanks a lot Google...

No...not really.

Jack@$$es!

~~~
MikeCapone
In the future, you can simply wait a few days for feedback/reviews. Not that
complicated.

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pmjordan
Actually, I didn't get a choice. On logging into GMail yesterday, it asked me
whether I wanted to to try Buzz. I picked 'no' so it went ahead and enabled it
anyway. I am _not_ impressed. Now looking at my options for moving away from
GMail if they keep messing with it.

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gwc
Don't let the FUD fool you. It's "active" in that you can see other people's
buzz posts and you get a buzz item on the left menu, but until you create a
public profile none of your information (such as follower/followee lists) has
been made public.

For you (and others like you and I who picked 'no'), clicking 'turn off buzz'
does seem to actually turn off the service for all intents and purposes. No
info is made public. Sure, some people 'auto-follow' me, but only those who
already had your email address. No real harm done.

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wooster
It's not FUD. I don't have a Google Profile, but Buzz was automatically
activated (even though I clicked the no/cancel/whatever-it-said-because-it-
totally-ignored-me-anyway button) when I logged into GMail.

I don't care if it was made public. If I had a profile, and it was made
public, that would not have made things better. That would be worse. I should
not need to understand the subtle privacy interplay of several different and
seemingly unrelated Google products just because I use one of them (Gmail).

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gwc
_I should not need to understand the subtle privacy interplay of several
different and seemingly unrelated Google products just because I use one of
them (Gmail)._

I entirely agree with this, although I'll point out that IIRC Google Chat did
the same thing in terms of modifying gmail but no-one seemed to really object
to that. Buzz seems to be different because of the privacy issues, i.e. Google
didn't communicate well what would happen (specifically a public profile that
included your follower/followee lists) if you clicked "yes". That there's a
new link on the left-hand menu can't really be the main issue, is it?

As far as FUD, I'm specifically referring to comments like this:

 _There is absolutely no way to opt out of Buzz._

<http://twitter.com/etherial/status/9023625277>

It IS possible to opt out of Buzz, ~ its just that its counter-intuitive and
once you've hit the "Yes" button, somewhat difficult to undo.

~~~
emily37
I've been wondering the same thing: why does it bother me so much that Buzz
auto-follows frequently-emailed contacts, but it doesn't bother me that gchat
automatically adds frequently-emailed contacts? I think it might be because
having contacts added in gchat doesn't mean I'll actually be communicating
with them, whereas auto-follow does mean that some communication will take
place... I'm not sure though. Also, I guess that having a strictly
professional contact's name sitting in my gchat contacts list is different
than that person being notified that I'm following them.

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orangecat
_why does it bother me so much that Buzz auto-follows frequently-emailed
contacts_

Because in combination with the default of having your follow list public,
that exposes who you've been emailing to the world.

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Vladik
As a Google fan boy, this pains me to say this. I had to turn it off :( After
everyone connected their twitter, blog, google reader feeds it became the same
useless jargon as everywhere else. I'll come back around to it after they
change things up.

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johns
Why not just unfollow people who's content you already get elsewhere? What's
the obligation to follow?

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lolcraft
(Maybe) he wants to send a clear message to Google: Buzz is crap.

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FluidDjango
The problem is not that it's crap, but that it's trap.

[ crap = something that just lies there and the reasonably alert can choose to
step over ]

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cubicle67
This Buzz things gives me some insight what it must feel like to be an average
user; I have NFI (still!) what my Buzz status is. Is it on or off? Do I have
followers? etc

I'm even more confused as I read more, because it's inconsistent with what I'm
seeing, and the reports from other people are inconsistent with each other,
making me think there's perhaps some A/B testing going on

[Edit: figured it out. Buzz was enabled for both myself and my wife. I'm
pretty cross about this. To me it's a flagrant breach of trust. Imagine what
would happen if Apple or Microsoft pulled a stunt like this]

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nfnaaron
One good thing came out of this mess. I went through all the various Google
products I've used in the past and deleted as much of me as I could.

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ryanwaggoner
This whole debacle is completely ridiculous, mainly because it's so confusing.
I won't go into all the inconsistencies and weird privacy policy interplay
issues that are going on, as others have, but I'll say this:

If I can't pound ten beers in an hour and still understand your privacy
policy, it's too complicated.

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elptacek
The smart thing to do would be to save off the pages of your followers, grep
out the identifiers and then replay the unfollow action through a fuzzer.

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treblig
I don't really see what the big deal is.

I'm going to leave it enabled. I'm aware that it's public, and I'll just make
sure to treat it as such. It seems unlikely that I'll publish any content
other than syndicating my Twitter feed (much like LinkedIn), and all of that
information is public already.

My life on the web is open to everyone, and that paradigm isn't going
anywhere.

~~~
emily37
_My life on the web is open to everyone, and that paradigm isn't going
anywhere._

I think the problem that most people are having is that Google is blurring the
line between our lives on the web and our lives in our inboxes. Specifically,
it seems that auto-follow is particularly offensive because who we frequently
email might not be who we want to include in our social networking sites.

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megamark16
Thank you, I've been looking for that all day. When they work out their
privacy issues maybe I'll turn it back on, but for now I'm good.

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hyperbovine
Can anyone confirm that blocking everybody like the article advises can be
done, erm, subtly? I'd rather not have my mom, sister, and best friend get a
message saying I blocked them. OTOH I am supremely annoyed that suddenly I'm
part of Google's dumb social network (I am one of those avoid-Facebook-
Myspace-etc.-at-all-costs people.)

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brown9-2
It might not be obvious but I found that even though my profile is not
"public", visitors who stumbled upon my Google Profile page could see who I
was following / who was following me.

In the Edit Profile section, looks like "Display the list of people I'm
following and people following me" is enabled by default.

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ww520
Holy shit. I can't believe Buzz is on for me. I've explicitly declined
activating it when asked. Now I'm seeing people following me. WTF, Google, can
you take NO for answer?

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awt
I won't be disconnecting Google Buzz. I think it's great -- it's all the
benefits of FriendFeed + all the users of gmail.

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mark_l_watson
Silly article, IMHO. Main reason: if you are really caught up in the privacy
issue, don't use Google (signed in), Facebook, etc. Also, strongly control
what cookies you want to allow.

To me it is a value proposition: what are the advantages of a service vs.
disadvantages like privacy issues. I choose to use most of Google's services,
occasionally use Facebook, and I am sort-of addicted to following people who I
consider to be "thought leaders" on Twitter.

Also, my early take on Buzz: it is OK, but I have an attitude that I don't
have to read everything that shows up on my Buzz list. Same as Twitter.

I have also started to sometimes do short tweets on Twitter, and maybe
following up with something more detailed on Buzz.

~~~
theli0nheart
It really is ridiculous. Seems Facebook is much worse when it comes to doing
things you don't ask it to.

There are two things I see people getting frustrated about with Buzz.

1\. It makes your name public and therefore allows people to search for you.

2\. It's an unnecessary distraction.

If you are bothered by (1), then you are little out of the loop with regards
to the state of privacy on the Internet in general. Basically, you need to get
used to having your name out there. If you are bothered by (2) then you can
turn it off.

~~~
pyre
How about:

1) It is opt-out rather than opt-in.

2) It automatically decides to auto-follow people for you.

3) Many people are complaining about privacy settings not 'sticking' (i.e.
disabling things only for the to end up as re-enabled later)

Personally, if I use Gmail as my email client, why am I all of the sudden
_forced_ to be a member of Buzz?

The worst part? Google is touting that 'millions of people have signed into
Buzz' as some sort of 'See? People like the service!' response to the
criticisms. But _THE SERVICE IS OPT-OUT_! So when I sign into Gmail and it
prompts me with "Learn more about Buzz/No thanks, go to inbox," _neither of
those options disables Buzz._ So Google has forced millions of people to log
into Buzz, then used the fact that millions of people have logged into Buzz as
validation for forcing them to log into Buzz.

{edit} I don't usually post 'people are excusing X company' crap, but in this
case I really feel that people are excusing Google from this behavior. It's
the same crap that people rail against Microsoft for: leveraging your current
userbase to gain a foothold in another market. What is the difference between
forcing all Gmail users to become GoogleBuzz members/users and forcing all
Windows users to become Internet Explorer users?

It just seems like there are a lot of people saying, "Hey! I find this
interesting, so I'll ignore anything negative associated with it!"

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theli0nheart
You totally disregarded the main points I made.

