Evil Buzz

As a long-time and devoted gmail user, this news about Buzz is really disturbing. Do I need to change my primary personal email account? What happened to the corporate motto: Do no evil?

Unless you tinker withBuzz's settings, a partial list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts might beautomatically made public (see this post over at SiliconAlley Insider; it appears that contacts are made public to those whoalready had a Google Profile account before Buzz; also seethis excellent andvery angry post at CNet for additional background).

Yes, that's right: without you ever touching Google Buzz'sprivacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes,including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker in the WhiteHouse).

Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists inauthoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of theirinterlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because, manyof their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracypromoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of thosecontacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I wouldimmediately dispatch my Internet geeksquads to check on Google Buzz accountsfor political activists and see if they have any connections that werepreviously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawingcomplex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret policeheadquarters.