All this buzzing makes me nauseous « Flackrabbit: Public Relations Flack | Digital Strategist

All this buzzing makes me nauseous

02.13.10Posted by Margie in All posts, Technology/Social Media3 CommentsTags: Google, Google Buzz, internet privacy, nausea, Privacy

It’s not the numerous legitimate privacy concerns that scare me about Google Buzz. I get nauseous nauseated* thinking about the first time someone–you, me, an elected official or famous person–mistakes a Buzz reply for an email and says something patently offensive, evil and/or downright embarrassing.

And it’s public. But you thought it was private when you hit send because the Buzz reply was IN YOUR INBOX.

Who’s horrible idea was this? I can’t imagine anything WORSE than putting a very public communications vehicle in someone’s PRIVATE email inbox.

I know I’m a little sensitive about this sort of thing, what with my obsession with people making fools of themselves on the Internet all. But…please Buzz with caution friends, okay?

*Many thanks to @oneworddotcom for the grammar correction. Only keeping it in the header because I’m not sure what changing the header does to the link folks are sharing!

Despite Privacy Issues, People Are Willing to Give Buzz a Chance [What You Said] (lifehacker.com)
Google Buzz Turns Less Creepy After Some Improvements [Google] (gizmodo.com)
Google Buzz Privacy Settings: How To Stay Safe (huffingtonpost.com)
How to turn off Google Buzz, or just close some of its privacy loopholes (downloadsquad.com)

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3 Responses to “All this buzzing makes me nauseous”

Danny Dougherty says:

February 13, 2010 at 10:04 pm

Go to settings. Then filters.

Create a new one.

Under “has the words” add “label:buzz” (You can do a test search to verify it’s pulling the right mails).

Click next step (you will get a warning telling you “label:” is a special search string. That is supposed to happen.)

Now, you can tick “skip the inbox” and buzz alerts will never show up there. If you don’t particularly care about these alerts, I would also recommend ticking “mark as read” as certain gMail plugins act up when you have “unread items” that are archived.
Margie says:

February 13, 2010 at 10:12 pm

Thanks, Danny! I just hate that the burden is on the user to go through all that to protect their inbox! (sigh)

Really do appreciate you sharing this tip in the comments.
.-= Margie´s last blog ..DC Flacks get HAPPO =-.
Dave Newman says:

February 14, 2010 at 12:13 am

My problem with Buzz, in addition to its placement in my inbox, is that Google has had how many years to create a social network and they still can’t do it? They have access to every bit of personal info they could ever want from us and they can’t make it better than FriendFeed?

This just wasn’t well thought out and I’m having some concerns now as to the level of common sense that’s being applied to the rest of the data and personal information in Google’s possession. God forbid we get Google Health. I can see it now: “Want to know what sexually transmitted diseases other people in your zip code and/or social network have searched for? Click here.”
.-= Dave Newman´s last blog ..You can thank me later for this… =-.