...Norms are changing, with confidentiality giving way to openness. Participating in YouTube, Loopt, FriendFeed, Flickr, and other elements of modern digital society means giving up some privacy, yet millions of people are willing to make that trade-off every day. Of people with an online profile, nearly 40 percent have disabled privacy settings so anyone may view it, according to a Pew Internet survey released a year ago. The percentage is probably higher today.
No doubt critics of Google Buzz would reply that accidental disclosure of some correspondents was ample reason to worry. While it's true that privacy options at first were not as obvious as they could have been, they did exist. Even the original version let you edit the "auto-following" list and preview your profile to see how you'd appear to others. (If you're that sensitive about your privacy, especially on a free service, why not take a moment to click that link?)...
