Google Buzz
Encyclopedia
Google Buzz is a social networking
, microblogging
and messaging tool from Google
integrated into the company's web-based email program, Gmail
. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox. On October 14, 2011, Google announced that it would be discontinuing the Buzz service. On November 24, 2011, Google confirmed in a FAQ, sent to googlemail users via infotab, that the project will be discontinued in a few weeks and the existing content will be available in a read-only mode.
Buzz enables users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post. Picasa
, Flickr
, Google Latitude
, Google Reader
, Google Sidewiki
, YouTube
, Blogger
, FriendFeed
, identi.ca
and Twitter
are currently integrated. The creation of Buzz was seen by industry analysts as an attempt by Google to compete with social networking websites like Facebook
and microblogging
services like Twitter. Buzz also includes several interface and interaction elements from other Google products (e.g. Google Reader) such as the ability to "like" a post.
Google executive Sergey Brin
said that by offering social communications, Buzz would help bridge the gap between work and leisure, but the service and its rollout were strongly criticized at the time for taking insufficient account of privacy concerns.
and Socialwok
.
location-sharing service, Buzz does not allow users to manually specify an arbitrary location.
The mobile version of Buzz integrates with Google Maps
so users can see who is around them. Buzz posts made through Google Maps are public, and can be seen by anybody else using the software. In addition to text, mobile users' posts may include an uploaded photo. Current platforms supported are limited to devices running Android 1.6+, iOS, Windows Mobile
, Openwave
, and S60
.
was only planned. Within 56 hours of its release, 9 million posts were made on Google Buzz — approximately 160,000 posts and comments per hour.
On October 14, 2011, Google announced that Google Buzz would be shut down together with the Buzz API "in a few weeks", in order to focus on Google+
instead. Bradley Horowitz, Google's Vice President, Product, explained the ramifications, "While people obviously won't be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout." He also said, "We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+".
Google Profiles existed before Buzz and could be set by the user to be public or not. After Buzz was released, the last name field was required to be non empty, and profiles set not to be indexed became indexed for a profile search.
A 2010 The New York Times
article stated that "Google is known for releasing new products before they are fully ready and then improving them over time." Google has twice tried to address privacy concerns: first by making the option to disable public sharing of contact lists more prominent and later by changing one of Buzz's features from "auto-follow" to "auto-suggest". This allows users complete control over whom they follow, and, therefore, who is revealed on their public list of contacts. These changes to the way that Google Buzz operates have, however, been criticized as inadequate and the company has been criticized for failing to take its users' privacy concerns seriously.
Among other initial problems, users who had never created a Google profile had no way to make their list of contacts or other information private, which resulted in a high-profile case involving information about a woman's current workplace and partner being shared with her abusive ex-husband.
Concerns have also been raised that because the mobile version of Google Buzz by default publishes the user's exact location when they post a message to the service, users may unintentionally reveal sensitive locations.
, filed a class action lawsuit against Google, alleging that Buzz violated several federal laws meant to protect privacy. On the same day, the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
alleging that Google Buzz "violated user expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google's privacy policy, and may have violated federal wiretap laws."
Also on February 16, 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
wrote "These problems arose because Google attempted to overcome its market disadvantage in competing with Twitter and Facebook by making a secondary use of your information. Google leveraged information gathered in a popular service (Gmail) with a new service (Buzz), and set a default to sharing your email contacts to maximize uptake of the service. In the process, the privacy of Google users was overlooked and ultimately compromised."
On February 17, 2010, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
, Jennifer Stoddart
, issued a statement on Buzz:
On November 2, 2010, Google e-mailed Gmail users to tell them about the outcome of the lawsuit. As part of its settlement, Google will create an $8.5 million fund to award money to groups that promote privacy education on the web, of which the prosecuting lawyers are requesting 25% ($2,125,000) "plus reimbursement of costs and expenses". The settlement was finally approved in June 2011.
On March 30, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Google regarding Buzz. In the announcement, the FTC agreed with the EPIC complaint that Google had violated its privacy policies by using information provided for Gmail for another purpose - social networking - without obtaining consumers’ permission in advance. The FTC also alleged that Google misrepresented that it was treating personal information from the European Union in accordance with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor privacy framework. The FTC stated that "The proposed settlement bars the company from future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years." In response to the announcement that Google has agreed to adopt a "Comprehensive Privacy Plan", EPIC launched a campaign, called "Fix Google Privacy", to encourage Internet users to offer their suggestions to improve safeguards for Google's products and services.
described Buzz's arrival as having "ignited a hailstorm of criticism". CBC indicated "One user blogged about how Buzz automatically added her abusive ex-boyfriend as a follower and exposed her communications with a current partner to him. Other bloggers commented that repressive governments in countries such as China or Iran could use Buzz to expose dissidents".
PCWorld
’s JR Raphael criticized Buzz for both its intrusive nature and privacy concerns, citing above all that it merely adds "more noise into an already buzzing area of my life". Raphael provided users with a step by step tutorial on how to disable Buzz.
Ryan Paul of Ars Technica
noted "there isn't much in Buzz that is new or original" and "the end result is a service that shows promise but lacks the requisite killer feature or innovative twist that it will need in order to truly keep people engaged."
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
, microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
and messaging tool from Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
integrated into the company's web-based email program, Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox. On October 14, 2011, Google announced that it would be discontinuing the Buzz service. On November 24, 2011, Google confirmed in a FAQ, sent to googlemail users via infotab, that the project will be discontinued in a few weeks and the existing content will be available in a read-only mode.
Buzz enables users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post. Picasa
Picasa
Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
, Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
, Google Latitude
Google Latitude
Google Latitude is a location-aware mobile app developed by Google as a successor to their earlier SMS-based service Dodgeball. Latitude allows a mobile phone user to allow certain people to view their current location. Via their own Google Account, the user's cell phone location is mapped on...
, Google Reader
Google Reader
Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. It was released by Google on October 7, 2005 through Google Labs. Reader was graduated from beta status on September 17, 2007.-Interface:...
, Google Sidewiki
Google Sidewiki
Google Sidewiki is a web annotation tool from Google, launched in September 2009. Sidewiki is a browser extension that allows anyone logged into a Google account to make and view comments about a given website in a sidebar...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, FriendFeed
FriendFeed
FriendFeed is a real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed...
, identi.ca
Identi.ca
identi.ca is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service. Based on StatusNet, a micro-blogging software package built on the OpenMicroBlogging specification, Identi.ca allows users to send text updates up to 140 characters long...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
are currently integrated. The creation of Buzz was seen by industry analysts as an attempt by Google to compete with social networking websites like Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
services like Twitter. Buzz also includes several interface and interaction elements from other Google products (e.g. Google Reader) such as the ability to "like" a post.
Google executive Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....
said that by offering social communications, Buzz would help bridge the gap between work and leisure, but the service and its rollout were strongly criticized at the time for taking insufficient account of privacy concerns.
Platform
In May 2010, Google revealed APIs for Buzz, expanding it to being a platform as well as a service. This allowed third-party developers to write software that would be able to both read and post content to Buzz. Several partners demonstrated integration via the new APIs, including SeesmicSeesmic
Seesmic is a suite of freeware web, mobile, and desktop applications which allow users to simultaneously manage user accounts for multiple social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter....
and Socialwok
Socialwok
Socialwok is a business social networking service launched in September 2009. Socialwok integrates with Google Apps and Google accounts. The service provides a feed-based format for users to share ideas, files, documents and calendars using rich media status updates...
.
Mobile versions
When the service is accessed with a supported mobile device, Buzz tags posts with the user's current location. Users are only permitted to use the actual physical location reported by the device for their Buzz posts; unlike the Google LatitudeGoogle Latitude
Google Latitude is a location-aware mobile app developed by Google as a successor to their earlier SMS-based service Dodgeball. Latitude allows a mobile phone user to allow certain people to view their current location. Via their own Google Account, the user's cell phone location is mapped on...
location-sharing service, Buzz does not allow users to manually specify an arbitrary location.
The mobile version of Buzz integrates with Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
so users can see who is around them. Buzz posts made through Google Maps are public, and can be seen by anybody else using the software. In addition to text, mobile users' posts may include an uploaded photo. Current platforms supported are limited to devices running Android 1.6+, iOS, Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
, Openwave
Openwave
Openwave is a software company. Based in Redwood City, California, USA, Openwave is historically significant in its introduction of the Mobile Internet and its expansion into a large successful mobile software supplier in the mobile telecom sector...
, and S60
S60 (software platform)
The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
.
History
Google Buzz was announced on February 9, 2010, in a press conference at the company's Mountain View headquarters and launched on the same day, at 11 a.m. PT for the first set of users. The feature, available from the Gmail inbox, was rolled out to Gmail accounts in the following weeks. A mobile version of the site optimized for Android phones and Apple's iPhone was also launched, while a version for businesses and schools that use Google AppsGoogle Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Groups, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and...
was only planned. Within 56 hours of its release, 9 million posts were made on Google Buzz — approximately 160,000 posts and comments per hour.
On October 14, 2011, Google announced that Google Buzz would be shut down together with the Buzz API "in a few weeks", in order to focus on Google+
Google+
Google+ is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc.The service was launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends who were over 18 years of age to the service to create their own accounts....
instead. Bradley Horowitz, Google's Vice President, Product, explained the ramifications, "While people obviously won't be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout." He also said, "We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+".
Privacy
At launch, Google's decision to opt-in its user base with weak privacy settings caused a serious breach of user information and garnered significant criticism. One feature in particular that was widely criticized as a severe privacy flaw was that by default Google Buzz publicly disclosed (on the user's Google profile) a list of the names of Gmail contacts that the user has most frequently emailed or chatted with. Users who failed to disable this feature (or did not realize that they had to) could have sensitive information about themselves and their contacts revealed. This has since been adjusted so that users now have to explicitly add information that they want public.Google Profiles existed before Buzz and could be set by the user to be public or not. After Buzz was released, the last name field was required to be non empty, and profiles set not to be indexed became indexed for a profile search.
A 2010 The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
article stated that "Google is known for releasing new products before they are fully ready and then improving them over time." Google has twice tried to address privacy concerns: first by making the option to disable public sharing of contact lists more prominent and later by changing one of Buzz's features from "auto-follow" to "auto-suggest". This allows users complete control over whom they follow, and, therefore, who is revealed on their public list of contacts. These changes to the way that Google Buzz operates have, however, been criticized as inadequate and the company has been criticized for failing to take its users' privacy concerns seriously.
Among other initial problems, users who had never created a Google profile had no way to make their list of contacts or other information private, which resulted in a high-profile case involving information about a woman's current workplace and partner being shared with her abusive ex-husband.
Concerns have also been raised that because the mobile version of Google Buzz by default publishes the user's exact location when they post a message to the service, users may unintentionally reveal sensitive locations.
Legal issues
On February 16, 2010, Eva Hibnick, a student at Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, filed a class action lawsuit against Google, alleging that Buzz violated several federal laws meant to protect privacy. On the same day, the Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research group in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values in the information age...
(EPIC) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
alleging that Google Buzz "violated user expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google's privacy policy, and may have violated federal wiretap laws."
Also on February 16, 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
wrote "These problems arose because Google attempted to overcome its market disadvantage in competing with Twitter and Facebook by making a secondary use of your information. Google leveraged information gathered in a popular service (Gmail) with a new service (Buzz), and set a default to sharing your email contacts to maximize uptake of the service. In the process, the privacy of Google users was overlooked and ultimately compromised."
On February 17, 2010, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada is a special ombudsman and an officer of parliament who reports directly to the House of Commons and the Senate....
, Jennifer Stoddart
Jennifer Stoddart
Jennifer Stoddart is the current Privacy Commissioner of Canada.Stoddart received a licence in civil law from McGill University as well as a Master of Arts in history from the Université du Québec à Montréal. On December 1, 2003, Stoddart was appointed Canada's Privacy Commissioner by the Governor...
, issued a statement on Buzz:
On November 2, 2010, Google e-mailed Gmail users to tell them about the outcome of the lawsuit. As part of its settlement, Google will create an $8.5 million fund to award money to groups that promote privacy education on the web, of which the prosecuting lawyers are requesting 25% ($2,125,000) "plus reimbursement of costs and expenses". The settlement was finally approved in June 2011.
On March 30, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Google regarding Buzz. In the announcement, the FTC agreed with the EPIC complaint that Google had violated its privacy policies by using information provided for Gmail for another purpose - social networking - without obtaining consumers’ permission in advance. The FTC also alleged that Google misrepresented that it was treating personal information from the European Union in accordance with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor privacy framework. The FTC stated that "The proposed settlement bars the company from future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years." In response to the announcement that Google has agreed to adopt a "Comprehensive Privacy Plan", EPIC launched a campaign, called "Fix Google Privacy", to encourage Internet users to offer their suggestions to improve safeguards for Google's products and services.
Reception
Both the general and technical press has been critical of Buzz and the manner in which it was implemented. The Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
described Buzz's arrival as having "ignited a hailstorm of criticism". CBC indicated "One user blogged about how Buzz automatically added her abusive ex-boyfriend as a follower and exposed her communications with a current partner to him. Other bloggers commented that repressive governments in countries such as China or Iran could use Buzz to expose dissidents".
PCWorld
PC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
’s JR Raphael criticized Buzz for both its intrusive nature and privacy concerns, citing above all that it merely adds "more noise into an already buzzing area of my life". Raphael provided users with a step by step tutorial on how to disable Buzz.
Ryan Paul of Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
noted "there isn't much in Buzz that is new or original" and "the end result is a service that shows promise but lacks the requisite killer feature or innovative twist that it will need in order to truly keep people engaged."