Last week marked the release of Buzz, Google’s new competitor for Facebook and Twitter.
Initially Buzz inherited a lot of the privacy issues of G-Chat by automatically adding everyone in your Google contacts. The problem with Google contacts is that even people you email casually end up in this list. Fortunately, this privacy issue has been mostly addressed, and Buzz now makes you confirm anyone before adding them.
However another privacy issue remains, which is that Google Buzz profile URLs line up with Gmail addresses. So if a Google profile exists at the URL http://www.google.com/profiles/rickymartin, you can bet there is a corresponding email account rickymartin@gmail.com. (Sorry Ricky is still ‘living la vida loca’ and hasn’t set up his Buzz account yet)
And there are additional issues with linking Google profile URLs with Gmail addresses, as this Buzz post from Danny Sullivan explains.
Getting Around … Read more…
