Google Buzz – Google Needs To Learn More

Google has added at least one way to totally opt out of Google Buzz, in the latest round of backpedaling to make its social service more acceptable to its user base. There appear to be two ways, both of which at least appear to do the same thing.

The first way to make Buzz, er, buzz off is to go down to the very bottom of the main Gmail page, either in Buzz or vanilla Gmail. There, quietly lurking, is a clickable option to “turn off Buzz”. If you do so, Buzz disappears from the left-hand nav bar.

It’s not entirely clear that “turning off” Buzz opts out of Buzz, because of the second option: bombing Buzz from the ‘Settings” screen, accessed at the top right-hand corner of the page. Google has quietly added a “Buzz” option on the main settings screen, with the option to either “Hide Buzz” or “Disable Buzz”. Hiding Buzz, as the screen tells you, will merely hide the view, without either opting out of Buzz or preventing new Buzz posts from being created.

Disabling it, however, totally opts out of Buzz: “This will disable Google Buzz in Gmail and delete your Google Profile and Buzz posts,” the warning states. “It will also disconnect any connected sites and unfollow you from anyone you are following.”

The settings tab also allows you to hide the lists of people you are following and who are following you, giving users the privacy option that should have been there in the first place.

Don’t see either option? Don’t worry; Google apparently is rolling them out to its user base. “As mentioned in our blog post, the improvements will be live within the next few days,” a Google spokeswoman said in an email. “Our engineers are are working round the clock to get them out as soon as possible.”

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