All the negative chatter about Buzz is reminiscent of the negative feedback and paranoia first associated with instant messaging, gps, and even the home telephone. The home telephone was once just a novelty and there were multiple concerns about privacy and security. The first telephone operators were teen age boys who were notably rude and often in trouble for repeating what they heard in phone conversations. They were quickly replaced with ‘the kinder and gentler sex’ and the rudeness abated but the security of content was still no safer. Business discussions conducted over the phone were often overheard and repeated by telephone operators everywhere. There were B movies with sinister plots popping up where the key informant was who else…the telephone operator!

As Ma Bell expanded into more rural areas the party line grew into popularity. Every member of the ‘party’ had a unique ring. My grandparent’s ring sounded like an SOS: three shorts three longs three shorts… Eavesdropping was as popular with some local busybodies as the radio soap opera! If you were once victim to their exploitation you quickly learned not to disclose private information over the party line again. The party line was not only a shared line it was a line that could be monopolized by some users who would have long winded conversations and forget to ‘share’ access with others on the same line. You could tell by the ring variation who was getting a call. The one and only time I ever heard my grandmother curse was over the party line when two ol’ biddies would not hang up when we needed an ambulance out at our family farm. It was always incumbent on the people talking on the line to guard the content of their conversations from the eavesdropping community gossip.

Assuming responsibility for what you share has always been a part of the discussion around social communication. Politicians have been concerned about remaining ‘off the record’ in social settings since the days of the ancient Greek and Roman senators scrambling to protect their public image. With the advent of new forms of social communication and sharing we are faced yet again with the ethics of sharing and disseminating sensitive or private information. With email we learned not to hit ‘reply to all’ when we were annoyed with one of the respondants on an email stream and decided to voice our frustration with another. With Facebook we learned quickly not to post Frat party pictures of ourselves passed out naked with the exception of a lampshade in the rhododendrons once you hit the job market. Then Twitter came along and we figured out quickly who were spammers and mlm’ers who we did not care to have sending us noisy posts. We also heard how dangerous the social networks were for fraud and identity theft. Foolish people learned quickly that if they posted their vacation plans they could become victims of a home robbery. As consumers, we had to learn not only etiquette for the new tools we had to learn to exercise common sense.

Then Buzz was launched by Google last week. How quickly we forget that with each of these other tools came the learning curve for dealing with the unsavory elements of the world who try to turn something good into something more sinister. Location based Buzzing from your new Droid phone allows you to post where you are (or not). You get to select where you are from Google local search type listings; however you cannot edit the locations at this time to add new locations. It allows map integration of where your friends are located at this moment in time as well as allows you to see who else is Buzzing from a particular location. You can protect your location and you can protect your conversations (public or private settings); however, you can’t undo a public setting for a Buzz once it goes public. There again, you ultimately are responsible for your actions so choose carefully!

Essentially, if you Buzz in the Buzz area of Gmail and make that public it is public and searchable. If you leave Buzz and respond from your Gmail inbox it is private as is Gmail chat; however, that is not clear in Google’s descriptions of Buzz at this point. You can use your Google Contact Groups to select who you send each Buzz to but there is no real contact manager in Gmail.

The biggest concerns voiced thus far about Google Buzz is that anyone (ie: competitors) can go to your profile and see exactly who you interact with most via email and chat:

So like any other social setting, be careful who you follow, watch your associates, and be careful what you say in public. So…take the time to change your profile settings so your ‘knickers’ aren’t exposed in public. I tell my friends to take the time to protect themselves just like they do with any other social situation: don’t tell everyone everything about you; do not wear your name, address, and telephone number where all can see; and don’t say anything in public that you do not want your mother to overhear!

To review your privacy settings:

1. Go to your Google profile page and log in (if you are on Buzz now and never created a Google profile page, Buzz created a default profile for you)
2. In the top right corner of the page click “Edit my Profile”  
3. This will take you to another page with all your Google Profile page settings.
4. 
5. Deselect “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.”
6. Don’t forget to hit ‘save’ at the bottom left of the page.

Et Voila! No more public friends list! Top of Form

If you keep social networking in perspective, it is no more dangerous or sinister than your cell phone. Like Twitter and Facebook, if used correctly Buzz has the potential of being a great sentiment marketing listening post for business! Listen, think before you “speak” and create community…and use some common sense people! And if you really don’t like Buzz after you try it…you can just turn the darn thing off! Go to the bottom of you Gmail and click on ‘turn Buzz off’ and you are done with the darn thing.