When in Doubt, Ask

Google is, as many of you know by now, getting significant negative press about "Buzz", its new effort in social networking.

Google often launches products that are not 100% ready-for-prime-time, which if often tags as "Beta" products, and then tweaks them regularly as time goes on. For this reason, some of the problems with "Buzz" are as one would expect. For example, the "Buzz" privacy controls are difficult to find -- as one commenter said, "Note to Google: If filling out IRS form 54321 in triplicate is easier than following your directions on using Buzz (and canceling it the right way) then you are doing something wrong."

But far more seriously, this time Google has run into the brick wall of privacy.

(Which is interesting, considering how much positive press Google received over its threats to leave China over allegedly government-sponsored hacking of human rights activists' Gmail accounts.)

"Buzz" was automatically provided to Gmail accounts last week, and account holders found that they had a ready-made network of "friends" selected by Google from the people with whom they had communicated regularly by email -- much simpler, really, than Facebook's careful "So-and-so has added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know So-and-so in order for you to be friends on Facebook."

No doubt their motives were excellent. But what Google did is akin to what a colleague of mine used to do. As he said, "It's easier to ask for forgiveness after than for permission before."

It is easier. It's also wrong.

In an article in today's New York Times, reporter Miguel Helft quotes the executive director of Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center: "People thought what they had [with Gmail] was an address book for an email program, and Google decided to turn that into a friends list for a new social network... E-mail is one of the few things that people understand to be private."

It's not just an invasion of privacy; it has the potential to be dangerous. One blogger who has been widely cited around the Net (her post can be found here on Gizmodo; her actual blog is now protected by a Wordpress login) was horrified to discover that the list of "friends" included her third-most frequent Gmail correspondent, who happens to be ... her abusive ex-husband.

So much for "Do no evil", eh?

What Google's inventive genuises need to remember is that there are sins of omission as well as sins of commission.

When in doubt, ask first.