February 13, 2010

Not Cool, Google

I've been trying out Google Buzz, just to see what it’s all about.

The first thing Buzz did was create a public profile from my existing Google info, complete with my photo and full name. Ok, I can live with that.

Then it took all the people I've been emailing lately, and added them to the publicly visible list of people I'm following.

Not cool, Google, not cool at all.

I've been job hunting lately, and if you got a look at that list before I killed it off, you could work out exactly which companies I've been talking to.

Other people have far bigger problems than that with their contact lists being published.

This is a pretty major privacy breach, and is particularly concerning coming from a company that has access to so much of our data.

If you’re using Buzz, I suggest you edit your Google Profile, and turn off “Display the list of people I'm following and people following me.”