Google Told to Buzz Off

Like the title of this post, I took the release of Google's social networking tool Buzz pretty lightly. It automatically connected my email contacts to my blogs and shared items. Even after my friends complained about privacy, using Buzz ironically, I didn't see the big deal. Sure my inbox was more full than normal and I wasn't sure if I would actually use the service, but I didn't see the harm. Until I read this:

E-mail, it turns out, can hold many secrets, from the names of personal physicians and illicit lovers to the identities of whistle-blowers and antigovernment activists.

And here's a more everyday example:

In an expletive-laden article that was widely cited on the Web, a blogger who writes about issues related to violence against women complained that Google had made her fearful. She said that she had unexpectedly discovered a list of people, which may have included her abusive ex-husband or people who sent hostile comments to her blog, following her and her comments on Google Reader, a service for reading blogs and automated news feeds.

“My privacy concerns are not trite,” wrote the blogger, who uses the pseudonym Harriet Jacobs. “They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up.”

Don't count Buzz out yet, but recognize there are some real privacy concerns.

*Addendum: I will funnel my blog and shared items through Google Buzz if that makes it more convenient for some to follow.*