‘Fuck you, Google … ‘
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- So says Harriet Jacobs on her Fugitivus blog, going on, “You have destroyed over ten years of my goodwill and adoration, just so you could try and out-MySpace MySpace.”
Pointing to Harriet’s story, “To all those with a GMail account, I highly recommend you check out your accounts and profiles, etc. to make sure the new Buzz service just launched by Google isn’t throwing your whole life out to the world right now, against your will”, says p2pnet regular Devils’ Advocate in a Reader’s Write.
“This goes for those who thought that simply not having a profile or turning Buzz off would have solved the problem.”
Many stories similar to Harriet’s are starting to surface, he says.
Funny she should’ve written Gargle is trying to out-MySpace MySpace.
“Google plans to outFacebook Facebook”, was a p2pnet headline on Wednesday, going on >>>
Microsoft is traditionally accused of being the world’s monopolist-in-chief. But that was then.
Today, the title undoubtedly goes to giant advertising company Google which sees the world, and everything in it, as its advertising oyster. It has its fingers in so many pies, up to and including politics at government level, you can no longer see the pies.
It’s already trying to outfox Firefox and out micro Microsoft with its very own browser. Now it plans to outFa$ebook social advertising site Fa$ebook, complete with a nauseating folksy promo video.
DA’s comment came in our story on how Goople, a psychopathic corporate personality if ever there was one, has hijacked Canada’s Olympics.
So throwing one’s “whole life out to the world right” would be child’s play.
Says Harriet on Fugitivus >>>
I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother.
There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts.
You know who my third most frequent contact is?
My abusive ex-husband.
Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.
My other most frequent contacts? Other friends of Flint’s.
Then there’s the minority, small numbers of people in other words.
But it’s “the minority that emails me the most, thus becoming FREQUENT”, she says, “psychotic men who think I deserve to be raped because I keep a blog about how I do not deserve to be raped, and this apparently causes the Hulk rage.”
Harriet stresses she can’t block these people because she’d never opened a Google profile or Buzz profile, “due to privacy concerns (apparently and resoundingly founded!).”
But that “doesn’t matter anyway, because every time I do block them, they are following me again in an hour”, she says, adding:
“I’m hoping that they, like me, do not realize and are not intentionally following me, but that’s the optimistic half of the glass. My pessimistic half is of the abyss, and it is staring back at you with a redolent stink-eye.”
‘ … too little control’
But not to worry, eh? Gargle has everything under control.
Informationweek has product manager Buzz Jackson — sorry, that should be Todd Jackson — admitting “Google had heard from concerned users who believed their contacts were being made public without their knowledge and who were upset that they had too little control over who could follow them”.
Google has “made the option to not display follower information on public profiles more visible”, says the story, going on >>>
The company has also made it possible to block followers who have not created a Google Profile and has made information about followers more clear.
While this may restore user trust in Buzz for some, Mike Geide, a senior security researcher with Zscaler who described in a blog post how Buzz could be misused by spammers, says that the service still could be misused. “These improvements could help to prevent spammers from following users who limit their ability to be followed — in other words, it is still up to users to policy their profile,” he said in an e-mail. “[But] E-mail addresses are still visible for those users that your Gmail account has corresponded with, so the e-mail validation problem still exists for Buzz.”
Google maintains that its spam detection systems would be likely foil such spamming efforts.
Pheeew! That’s OK, then.
But stay tuned just in case …
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Fugitivus – Fuck you, Google, February 11, 2010
p2pnet – Google plans to outFacebook Facebook, February 10, 2010
hijacked Canada’s Olympics – Google plunders the 2010 Winter Olympics, February 11, 2010
Informationweek – Google Buzz Gets Privacy Patch, February 12, 2010
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
“Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you’re likely to skip,” says the puff page.
Says Gargle >>>
When you use Google Buzz, we may record information about your use of the product, such as the posts you like or comment on and the other users with whom you communicate, in order to provide you with a better experience on Buzz and other Google services and to improve the quality of Google services.
Provide you with a better experience? Riiight.
And ‘may’ record?
February 13th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
See, this this is the kind of invasion of privacy you should be worried about, not someone taking pictures of public streets from the middle of the road.
February 13th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Windows Live/Hotmail did the same thing a few months back. Everytime someone on my contacts post a comment on someone elses profile I can see that. I had to go and change all my settings to private and there are so many different sections to checkmark, i still dont even know if Im secure or not. I dont post on anyone elses email/profile and I dont want someone to be able to see who I have on my contacts or in my network etc. I would like all these social sites/ email acounts have a simple setting “Hide you from the world, yes/no” If you choose no then another section controls who sees what. If you choose yes, then no other choices. You are hidden. I dont want to spend time trying to figure out what sections i have to checkmark and if it actually worked. Iver spent hours double checking my settings against other accounts I have. It reminds me of the time when I used Trillian and accidently merged contacts from 2 hotmail accounts. Im still feeling the repurcussions of that mess up.
February 13th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
What’s wrong with this is there doesn’t appear to be any quick “opt-out” option. The CEO seems to be very arrogant and dismissive of privacy concerns. That woman is a PERFECT example of why people don’t want info automatically shared among contacts; why do they assume just because someone is on the contact list and emailed frequently they are friends? Is your boss your friend? Just because you email him, do you want to share “the buzz” with him? Are bill collectors your friends? The list of riff raff on your contact list you don’t want to share ANYTHING with could go on forever.
May 12th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Hi,
agree with a previous poster what gives them the right to assume these people who you may mail once or twice are your friends?.
On another note IMHO there should not be a “opt-out” it should start with a “opt-in” as alot of people are auto opted in to things without their knowledge (e.g go buy a phone and when you turn it on you will get about 4 messages saying you are “in” x, y, z clubs and to text xxxx to opt out ofcourse they already have your details then).
Peace out!