Google Reader Share With Friends Feature Causes Privacy Concerns

Dec 26, 2007 at 8:31am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google Reader shares private data, ruins Christmas from Felipe Hoffa has a detailed rundown of the user complaints with Google Reader’s new share with friends feature.

Felipe writes, “One week ago Google Reader’s team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven’t been answered.” Yes, it was a bit shocking to see that my feeds were shared with my Gmail contacts by default. I did not opt in to allow my friends to see my feeds, Google did that for me. But is there a way to opt out?

Postscript: There appears to be really no ‘good’ way to hide your shared feeds.

Either you delete all your shared items or your delete all your Gmail contacts.

I am sure Google will now move quickly on making this feature more robust and flexible.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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