"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
This Buzz stunt should haunt Google forever as we clearly can't trust them on "do no evil". This is a at least the sentiment I still have from this Buzz privacy scandal.
This Buzz stunt should haunt Google forever as we clearly can't trust them on "do no evil". This is a at least the sentiment I still have from this Buzz privacy scandal.
[1] Please correct me if I'm wrong. I searched but found no evidence saying otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil doesn't really say that its their motto either, but does certainly suggest that Google has been riding the Don't be Evil publicity.
Disclaimer: I work at Google. My opinions are my own.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil
Exploiting users privacy in order to build a social network is evil - - and saying "I'm sorry" and fixing the issue when you have exploited millions of users does not make Google's Buzz act less evil.
An analogy could be to spam millions of people to build a social network - - and then you say "I'm sorry, we won't spam any longer, see we fixed it". Is this acceptable? I say no. They should be accountable for their actions and be punished like spammers get punished.
If individuals are hung up about privacy, they don't have to join. If they do join, I have a whole set of screenshots I took before the revamp on Thursday showing all the ways they could configure Buzz before it was activated.
If users actually bothered to read, Google's plan would have worked well. Unfortunately, people who say they're hung up on privacy can't be bothered to read how to protect it when they join a new social network, yet, have plenty of time to blog about it to complain afterwards. Irony, that.