Google is not really clear about social media and building community as they move forward with Buzz. First they exposed users’ contacts and had a PR mess on their hands resulting in a quick repair job both on your Google profile and to their Gmail pages. Now they have a bigger one on their hands as users try to self-select out of Buzz…

• You can mute it
• You can turn it off (but don’t do it yet! Explanation to follow)

Buzz is in its infancy and will change as it goes through the typical growing pains of a new social tool. However, this does not explain why they have decided to take punitive measures against users who wish to disengage from Buzz. If you are currently using Buzz and want to ‘turn it off’ you go to the bottom of your Gmail page:

Then you are re-directed to your Gmail settings. This is where things get tricky. Notice that if you turn off Buzz completely you also get your Google profile removed. Yikes!

Turn off Buzz and Google deletes your Google Profile

What are they thinking? So this appears to be a punitive response for leaving their social network. Hmmm…how anti-social! If you lose your Google profile you lose some SEO but if you have left any reviews on businesses do those disappear too? And what about the book reviews a user might have posted or what if they have a local business listing attached to that Gmail account and that profile…does it impact that as well? It is not clear what is lost other than your Buzz account and your profile. So will they next require any business listed in Google Local Listings to join Buzz? This is all supposition and a bit Orwellian; however, it does make a new user pause and think twice about signing up for Gmail and Buzz.

Punishing users for leaving a social network is never a good thing. It will certainly make new adopters angry if they sign up and this rule is not clearly spelled out in the terms and conditions. What is most interesting about this little glitch in their process is that there has been little to no outcry either on Buzz or any other social network about this removal of Google Profiles for disengaging Buzz. Perhaps what is worse is that while I posed this question twice on Twitter no one from Google must be monitoring their brand name as not one response has come back to me.

Hey Google! Are you out there? Hope you are listening!