281–287 of 287 posts
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Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list - some of whom I don't think should have been added - and I had to actively go and search for the privacy/remove/turn off features. If, on the other hand, Google had said "heres our new Google Buzz feature, heres how to turn it on, heres the privacy settings and heres how you can add everyone|people you talk to regularly…
>Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list. To the best of my knowledge they prompt you and ask you who you want to follow. This was the case for me. They don't automatically follow - unless you click the OK button. Turning off buzz is literally one click away at the bottom of the screen. I know because I used it.
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Obfuscated opt-out is pretty much the definition of 'evil'.
Hanlon's Razor comes to mind : "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I doubt the google programmers are stupid but I would say that they probably were excited by the new feature that they are proud of and didn't think that people would want to opt out of it before even trying it.
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I don't understand the disagreement. Can someone explain to me why "web-based anonymous e-mail" can reliably exist ? (short of having your mail server at home, of course)
http://www.lavabit.com They (claim to) use some sort of asymmetric encryption scheme such that they literally do not have access to the data on their own servers. I'd love to have a crypto expert explain to me if it's legit.
Anyway, there is more than just your e-mail: there is your connection logs, the quantity of messages you receive (and from whom), retrieve (and when) and sent (and to whom).
Plus, the relevant authorities could compel them to surrender your logs. You may prefer that they (have to) ask you directly. (EDIT: Vivtek says this happens very rarely, if you care do ditch the logs, so this may be a small issue.)
I don't think we can get closer to truly anonymous web based mail. That may be sufficient for most people, though.
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Buzz automatically adds at least Reader and Picasa streams to your Buzz account.
But it's not too hard to remove them. The way the Buzz settings found my contacts and added them was perfect, because I use my gmail account frequently with my friends -- I'm right in their ideal use case. This person didn't -- either she could not have "Okayed" Buzz at all and there would be no issue, or once she saw that it added all the wrong people she could disable her sites and then not post to it.
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You can turn Buzz off on the bottom of your gmail page and privacy settings can be found at https://www.google.com/accounts/ though I still found it awkward and unintuitive really.
Went to your link to see what privacy settings there were. Noticed the address they had on file was my last company's US address. Removed that, then saw that somehow the payments for that company's Google Apps account were made through MY Google account, and their credit card was still on file. Thanks Google, for storing someone else's credit card for someone else's services on my account, for no reason I can find, o…
Not even they have the time and processing power to sort through it.
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Clicking "No thanks" in this instance is not a command to disable buzz it is actually a dismissal of the tutorial page. Buzz will still be enabled either choice you make. There should be an obvious opt out of buzz on the splash screen page. The way to turn it off is a very small textual link in the footer of the page that says turn off buzz.
Obfuscated opt-out is pretty much the definition of 'evil'.