Google Plays Defense

Google is backpedaling amid the buzz about Buzz, apologizing for its premature launch and the privacy issues it created, and promising to make Buzz more like other social networking sites, where users can choose the friends they associate with.

The brou-ha-ha goes to show that "privacy is still a social norm," to contradict the claim of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg last year that people these days want the whole world to see what they put online. It's heartening to see Google acknowledge this openly and take immediate remedial steps. Will they be enough? Keep watching to find out...

[cross-posted at Duck of Minerva]

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I hope this isn't some sort of sign

If you type a word into Google, it will pull up the most common searches that begin with that word. Currently, the three most common searches that begin with "Is" are (in order):

(1) Is Lady Gaga a man?

(2) Is Lady Gaga a hermaphrodite?

(3) Is the world coming to an end in 2012?

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