Within days of launching Buzz, Google is trying to thwart a PR nightmare for privacy violations. Seems they launched the new social media platform without considering users might not appreciate a feature that automatically linked them to others without permission. Users expressed their concerns and anger, so Google changed the system to include an auto-suggest model.
Buzz is a new media tool that directly integrates with Gmail and allows users to share information such as links, photos, messages, and videos. With Buzz, they hoped to tap into their 176 million Gmail users and take down Facebook (which has over 400 million active users).
Google apologized to Buzz users in The Official Gmail Blog on February 13, 2010, saying, “We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we’ve been working around the clock to address the concerns you’ve raised. . . We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We’ll continue to do so.”
Read the full apology here: Official Gmail Blog.
With social media privacy concerns growing, this does not look good for the Internet giant. They might be able to fix the issue quickly, but will people be able to trust this new social media platform?
Below is Google’s video about all the wondrous things we can do with Buzz.
Will you trust your privacy to Google Buzz? Let us know in our comments section.
