Buzz gets tweaked

Google has made some changes to its Buzz social network toolafter numerous complaints about privacy.

Buzz allows Gmail users to share updates, video, photos andlinks to other sites, as well as connect to popular services like Flickr andTwitter, all from within Gmail. However, users have complained about Buzz beingautomatically tied to their Gmail account without their permission, and thatinformation they considered private (such as their most frequent contacts) hadbeen made public.

Addressing the latter issue, known as ‘auto-following’,Google said it had now been changed to ‘auto-suggesting’, meaning users won'tbe set up to follow anyone until they have reviewed the suggestions and clicked"Follow selected people and start using Buzz".

Users can review the list of people they’re following bygoing to the Buzz tab, clicking "Following XX people" and unfollowinganyone they wish. If they don't want to share the lists of people who arefollowing them and people they are following publicly on their profile, theycan opt out at any time from the edit profile page.

“Second, Buzz will no longer connect your public Picasa WebAlbums and Google Reader shared items automatically,” Google said in a blogposting. “Just to be clear: Buzz only automatically connected content that wasalready public, so if you had previously shared photos in an ‘Unlisted’ albumor set your Google Reader shared items as ‘Protected’, no one except the peopleyou'd explicitly allowed to see your stuff has been able to see it. But due toyour feedback Buzz will no longer connect these sites automatically.

“Third, we're adding a Buzz tab to Gmail Settings. Fromthere, you'll be able to hide Buzz from Gmail or disable it completely. Inaddition, there will be a link to these settings from the initial start-up pageso you can easily decide from the get go that you don't want to use Buzz atall.”

Google says it realises it “didn’t get everything right” andis “sorry for the concern it caused”.