Google Buzz is a Buzz-kill!!

I've been following the Buzz on Google Buzz. If you have Gmail - you have Buzz. It creates a social network based on your email IDs and so on! 

I've always liked Google products. They come from a place of zero aesthetic value and yet highly functional. I do use all the rest of the Google products. And I really like Gmail - simple, efficient, clean ... until I saw the little Google Buzz icon at the top of the page. 

But seriously - BUZZ?? Do i need another social networking tool? I have Myspace and Facebook and LinkedIn. Why do I need yet another one? Especially one that presumes to know HOW I want certain things organized in my life. Yes, email organization is something practically everybody does. 


WHAT on earth were people at Google thinking - or perhaps they were not. Maybe the reason people have different email accounts is because they WANT to keep some accounts separate? Like most people I have separate email accounts - for fun, for friends, for work, and for personal private business. So to have one of them open and for the world to see my contact list is literally awful.

Oh I could think of a hundred different reasons that the people I send emails to are not necessarily people that I want to have a 'social' contact with.  


- Did they forget that people perform monetary transactions online? 
- That people might NOT want every single vendor they purchased something from following them online?
- The various online communities that I subscribe to?  Yes - that's good demographic data - except that's NOT data I intend to provide google.
- The ex-boyfriend that someone was trying to hide from?


Did they forget something called privacy? 

Those of you who use Gmail and do NOT want Google to set you up to have a hundred people 'following' you - you can turn off Buzz. 

There's a tiny link right at the bottom of your email page that says 'Turn off Buzz'. You can click on that to turn it off. I do not know if turning off that button means that you will not be shown following other people around or that you will be shown as not being on Buzz - I do not have a clue!

So why does it still leave me with an uneasy feeling?

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