I haven't seen this to be the case.
Do you mean it's only taken you two deletes, or just one? Because if you mean just one, our mileages have varied.
1: Me neither. I turned it off at the bottom of the inbox -- and it isn't in any of these other places.
Just two, I think. It seems to me the Buzz tab applies the Buzz: label to All Mail.
I think I've killed the damned thing. Maybe. It might one of those slasher movie villains though.
Maybe they've fixed it? More data points!
Me neither. I turned it off at the bottom of the inbox
This will be the case if you hadn't posted anything to your Buzz stream (*nomenclature barf*).
A smiley face to anyone who can tell me which moods and tenses I should have used in 8.
I am getting more and more worried that I may have a Boogle Guzz Struzz Beam broadcasting my inner dialogue without ever having turned it on. DAMN DEFAULTS
moods and tenses
Grumpy and extremely?
10: Ned, google buzz is turned on by default. This means that unless you turn it off, all of your google searches are visible to anyone you've ever emailed from your gmail account. And, like SB says, it's a three-step process to turn it off. And it defaults back to "on" every night at midnight, so you have to repeat the three-step process daily. It's really one of the worst "innovations" I've ever seen. I hate it.
Wow...I was afraid to click on the "Buzz" icon because I thought that would turn it on. I would have gone weeks without realizing that it was on, since it doesn't actually do anything except show a little icon, unless you click on the icon.
Apparently I am following 15 people and have 6 followers. Now to figure out how to turn it off.
Maybe they're fixing it. In any event, the worry over a Buzz conversation being publicly available really only kicks in if you'd foolishly left information showing in your profile that you'd prefer not have been there; or if one of your conversational partners had done so and wishes the thing to disappear.
On preview, 12 is fucking with us.
And it defaults back to "on" every night at midnight, so you have to repeat the three-step process daily.
This is a joke, right? Not that I know firsthand, but it seems ridiculously implausible.
unless you turn it off, all of your google searches are visible to anyone you've ever emailed from your gmail account.
And this is the bit that tipped me off that the whole thing was a joke.
Or...maybe it wasn't on until I clicked on the Buzz icon for the first time. There's no possible way of knowing!
I give up; Google has broken me. I just posted in my Buzz Stream™ my social security number, my gmail password and a picture of my cock. My privacy has been fully surrendered. Take me, Google. Do with me as you please.
Given the level of virulant anti-buzz, what are the odds that our beloved SB is in the employ of facebook? Or friendster?
ned, seriously, it's turned on unless you've turned it off, which you do way down at the bottom of your gmail front page, a clickable link called "turn off buzz."
Was "Gmail view: standard | turn off chat | turn off buzz | older version | basic HTML Learn more" always at the bottom of the Gmail screen?
I never knew I had the option to turn off chat before, but at least that didn't bother me, except for the one person who uses it to bother me.
I clicked "turn off buzz". But maybe that just removes the word "buzz" from my interface, while continuing to broadcast my inner life to people. There's no way of knowing.
According to "My Account", a page I'd never seen before, I don't have a public profile. Hopefully that takes away one of the steps listed as necessary in the OP.
Maybe I should turn Buzz back on to find out if I've created any "artifacts". Fortunately I almost always log out as soon as I'm done checking my email. This whole thing is very unsettling.
Still, you know, it was an interesting idea, this Buzz (gah stupid name I can't get over it) -- I've been trying to understand what niche it was supposed to fill. Like a chat or instant messaging system, but among a number of people. So, like a blog, but without directed topics. Like Facebook? Not exactly. Like Twitter but without the 140 character limit.
Oh well.
The Winter Olympics is way cooler than those summer ones.
Only in temperature, oudemia. Its contents are way more tepid than those summer ones.
So I should order a Nexus One because Apple is too whatever-it-is-that-Apple-is, right?
You should buy a locally grown smartphone at your weekly smartphone market, NPH. There simply no way you can buy from Big Tech in good conscience, no matter how you slice it.
Or maybe I could just keep using the dumb old Samsung phone that fits in my pocket?
It's unusually warm here. Also, the airport has the slowest moving security lines I've run into anywhere in North America (but I don't fly much). And this is for flying away from the Olympics.
'Cause Koreans could never be evil.
It looks like you really need to a bunch of stuff to get rid of buzz completely:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=171460
This thread got me to look at the gmail blog, and it appears that they are making privacy options easier to implement within buzz, but it doesn't sound like they will make it easier to turn buzz off.
The message I get is that they really want people to use buzz.
They're going to roll out Google Fuehrer any day now, arent' they?
29: That makes me feel better. I think I'm protected because I don't have a Google profile.
I never knew I had the option to turn off chat before
I found out a little while back about the "Go invisible" option, which I love. I am always and forever invisible. (In the Chat box at the left-hand side, by your own name, is a little menu labeled "Set Status Here." Choose invisible.)
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic
arms.
I guess I'll go about deleting my Google profile, however that's done.
In general? It's always good policy to sign out of Google (or anything) when you're done checking your mail or whatever. You don't really need to be logged in all the time, right?
the "Go invisible" option
I went invisible a while ago, but can't really figure out why I have and some other of my email correspondents have grey dots next to our names, while others have no dots at all! A puzzle. Chat is turned off anyway.
So now I'm blocking "followers," and the question arises: Will these people know they are "blocked"? and will any of them care? In other words, will anyone be offended that I blocked him/her? I mean, probably not, and of course I shouldn't worry about this, but damn... I really hate how this thing insinuated itself into my account and made its functions the new default settings, so that I now have to turn things off and worry about possible unintended social messaging consequences.
Sometimes I think the internet is more trouble than it's worth.
Will these people know they are "blocked"? and will any of them care?
I know. I care. It hurts, MC.
I think you can assume that all those people signed in to Gmail one day and found themselves following you through no act of their own volition, MarCat.
My sense of humor about this is abandoning me. I can't figure out how to delete my profile. I've stripped it down to virtually nothing, which I'd be more or less satisfied with, but the fact that reference is made to deleting one's profile, but I cannot see any way to do that, is infuriating. I'm affronted.
hmmmm--but why would you have a Google profile? I've used gmail since it was invite-only and it never even occurred to me that a profile might be a good idea--how could such a thing be useful?
(not to be a prick about this--maybe this just marks me as an old person?--for me gmail was/is a webmail program that works pretty well, not a fully integrated way of life.....)
43: "She seemed to be one of these persons who was just very open with her feelings,"
I'll say.
I don't remember why I have a profile. Probably was naively lured into creating one at some point. Possibly when I set up Google Reader. I really don't remember.
42: And yes, agreed. As I say, god knows why it's there, but I should like to rid myself of it, and then all will be well (relatively) again.
39: That is certainly my assumption. Nevertheless, people can get offended in the oddest ways and for the strangest things. In truth, there is one person in my gmail list that I actually sort of worry about. No, not you, Ari (have you ever even gmailed me, eh? eh? no, I didn't think so...).
Parsimon, I don't know that it's possible to delete one's profile and still have an account. Or is it?
47.last: A line from this page:
Deleting your public profile won't delete your Google Account.
Well, I'm annoyed enough that I'm blowing it off for a while.
My sense of humor about this is abandoning me. I can't figure out how to delete my profile. I've stripped it down to virtually nothing, which I'd be more or less satisfied with, but the fact that reference is made to deleting one's profile, but I cannot see any way to do that, is infuriating. I'm affronted.
This makes it sound easy to do, but since I don't have a profile, I can't try it to find out what happens.
50: Thank you, dear sir. Works a charm. It would also appear (according to the warning blurbs you get before committing to the act) to immediately delete any and all Buzz posts you've made. Should one wish to do that in toto.
Should one wish to do that in toto.
I don't even have a dog named Toto.
(I duplicated #50, then deleted it on preview. I hate being pwned in toto.)
53: Well, thanks, in spirit. Apparently I get really pissy when my privacy is messed with. Sorry, all.
Heh. Just learned Rory's school is participating in some "doodle for google" contest to design a frontpage graphic. Ideas?
If anyone needs further help, I can offer the following, from a friend at Boogle (not on the Guzz team, because he is a good and decent man).
As far as my current understanding, here's everything you need to know to turn off Buzz:
1. If you never post anything (or comment on anything), then you are pretty close to all the way there to begin with, with a few caveats: automatic posts via connected sites (#3 below), and the public profile (#4).
2. The "turn off buzz" link at the very bottom of gmail actually just hides the ui. Given #1, that's actually most of it.
3. You should be sure that nothing is being automatically posted to buzz by removing all of the connected sites. Turn on the buzz ui, click on buzz, then on the top next to your name, there's "N connected sites" -- click on that and click on each of the ones that are connected to remove them.
4. If you ever did start using buzz and made public profile, you probably want to remove that too. Go to http://www.google.com/profiles/me and (assuming it comes up with a profile), click on "edit profile."
a. If you want to completely remove your profile, at the very bottom of the page (down with the copyright and terms of service), the last option is "Delete profile". It'll say that you can't undo this, which means you cannot restore any information but you can (if you wish) re-create a profile later.
b. If you don't want your profile to be found by searching, you can un-check the first option: "Display my full name so I can be found in search." The profile is still publically available, it's just not indexed in the search. I think there are some other ways to get it, but I'm not sure what they are.
c. If you just don't want your contact list to be public, then to the left of your picture there should be three options, with the bottom-most being "Display the list of people I'm following and people following me" which you can disable.
55: Google's grasping hands, rifling through your most treasured secrets.
55: Google as the new new Panopticon, with each "o" as one of its all-seeing eyes, from which there is no hiding.
55, 57, 58: Nah. Keep it simple: double goatse.
59, 60: I still don't know what either of those mean. And at this point I sure as hell am not googling them.
61: Very wise. You can't unsee something and goatse is something that I would very much like to be able to not form a mental picture of when it comes-up in conversation. Because of the goatse experience, I've never seen the thing with the cup.
62: goatse is, as these things go, really kinda tame. It's *impressive*, but by far not the most scarring thing I've ever seen on the interwebs.
by far not the most scarring thing I've ever seen on the interwebs
Ain't that the truth.
63, 64: All the more reason not to Google strange terms that pop-up.
65: You don't really need to Google them. I'm sure apo's more than willing to direct you to appropriate links without any effort on your part.
Anyone have recommendations for how best to store a sponge cake?
Also, hi, clearly I'm still around somewhat.
The goatse guy isn't scarring only for the disturbing nature of the image. You've also got the realization that, barring some kind of genetic issue I'd rather not hear about, some guy clearly spent a very long time working toward that moment. Also, and this may be a fault of my memory, but didn't he kind of look like Gabby Hayes?
Anyone have recommendations for how best to store a sponge cake?
The goatse guy might.
As for storing cakes, I wouldn't leave them out in the rain.
The goatse guy might.
Thanks, what's his contact info?
The totally official, non-fake way to kill Buzz
Total buzzkill, dude.
This means that unless you turn it off, all of your google searches are visible to anyone you've ever emailed from your gmail account.
How so? How do I see the searches of someone I'm following? They don't appear by default.
How so?
In the "not actually so" sense of so.
I heard that if you google "why does google suck" google turns your webcam on and takes a screencap and sends it to "To Catch A Predator" along with a machine generated chat log of you hitting on a twelve-year-old, is what I heard.
83: And if you reveal that online, they hunt you down and kill you and replace you with a 'bot so your Internet friends never suspect what happened.
You mean Sift isn't a bot?! I assumed his brand of crazy could only originate from a Markov model run amok.
"Meet the new bot, same as the old bot"
Yes, [ entity ]. I agree with [ statement ], per my usual custom.
Well that proves [error in line 231].
I've been using Gmail since 2004, and occasionally Docs/Spreadsheets, but I've never used Reader, Calendar, Orkut etc. I've got a Google API key. As mentioned before, I don't use the Web interface.
Does anyone know what this egregious dogfuck is leaking onto the Web at large, given those parameters?
90: presumably the short form of your google username (not your full name) and nothing else.
92: I know, right? But I bet they'd be even better for night *vlogging*.
93: I should have known to look at Archie McPhee!
I'm annoyed that Google Chrome seems to have downloaded and installed a new version of itself without asking me.
96: IE once cupped my ass cheek and tried to blame Firefox.
IE once cupped my ass cheek
Sorry, that was me.
Thanks, Sifu. I can return to my usual posture of effortless superiority.
99: oh, that's on the profile, too.
