Google Buzz Privacy Issues Disturbs Plenty; Harms Nobody

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Google Buzz was announced last week and we immediately started buzzing about it too. So did everyone else but Google’s new social networking service failed to really impress us. Google’s intentions were good but not properly implemented. Google Buzz has been built on top of Gmail and that ensured the chaos that followed the Buzz’s official launch.

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It looks like Google made sure that you’d automatically be following those people you’re mostly communicating through Gmail or GTalk with. And other people were able to see whom you were following which is not exactly what one would want to be made public, would it?

Google acknowledged the problem and worked on a fix to protect our privacy and virtues but the harm has been done. Google Buzz, a service that could grow into a really interesting social networking portal, has made a poor first impression. Kind of like the Nexus One failed to impress in the first weeks as it was plagued with 3G issues.

Now Eric Schmidt, Google’s own CEO, took advantage of the MWC to buzz (I’m already using the word too much, aren’t I?) about Google Buzz. He explained that although the service had a rough start, everything was fixed and no “bad stuff” happened. Here’s what he said word for word:

I would say that we did not understand how to communicate Google Buzz and its privacy. There was a lot of confusion when it came out on Tuesday, and people thought that somehow we were publishing their email addresses and private information, which was not true. I think it was our fault that we did not communicate that fact very well, but the important thing is that no really bad stuff happens in the sense that nobody’s personal information was disclosed.

While that might be true, harm was done as Google Buzz revealed various details about certain users which should remain private at all times. I imagine that some Google Buzz users still blame Google for the debacle it has caused and, who knows, we might see some folks suing Google for damages.

How would you describe your Google Buzz experience?