Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Amid Privacy Concerns, Google Tweaks Buzz Again

by Terrence O'Brien on February 15, 2010 at 10:55 AM

Buzz Receives Second Round of Privacy Tweaks
Google Buzz may still be in its infancy, but it already has one obvious leg up on its competition: speed of evolution. Facebook may seem to have an endless line of facelifts, but its response to user criticism is slow at best. Twitter, on the other hand, has been slow to roll out new features and tweak the interface, often announcing changes months in advance. Meanwhile, Buzz has been out for less than a week, and Google is already making its second round of changes to the service's default behavior and privacy settings.

First, and perhaps most importantly, Google has responded to complaints that Buzz reveals your contacts by auto-following the people you e-mail the most. Auto-follow has now been terminated in favor of an auto-suggest model that encourages you to add your most frequent chat and e-mail partners, but won't follow them without your direct consent.

Buzz will also no longer automatically pull in public items from your Picasa and Google Reader feeds. While the company was quick to point out that the data it was sharing was already public, it is responding to criticism from users who wanted more direct involvement in setting up their public profiles. Lastly, users will soon find a separate "Buzz" tab in their Gmail settings. There, they can choose to make those "following" lists hidden or public, to turn Buzz on or off within Gmail, or even to opt out of the service completely.

Some, like David Winer from Scripting News, still aren't happy. While we understand their frustration and feeling that their privacy has been violated, we still have to give some credit to Google for its quick response to user concerns. [From: Official Gmail Blog and Huffington Post]

Tags: buzz, gmail, google buzz, GoogleBuzz, privacy, top

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular