Google Reader “shared items” provoking fury

Google has seen a new Reader feature spectacularly blow up in their faces after users furiously complained about their privacy being violated and Reader being turned into “another crappy social network”.

The controversial feature allows you to see the shared feed items being looked at and stored by your fellow Gmail / GTalk contacts. What is provoking the most anger is that Google automatically opted everyone in with no way to realistically opt out. Theoretically, the only way to stop people from seeing your shared feeds is to either delete the RSS feeds or delete the contact from your Gmail / GTalk lists – both of which are impractical for many Reader / Talk power-users, including myself.    Especially if you rely on these applications for work.

So angry users took to the boards to strongly complain and demand that either Google switches off the feature, or at the very least give users the right to opt out.

But instead of instantly nipping the ill-feelings in the bud, Google only ended up fanning the flames by issuing a bland response. Their attitude was “it’s shared items, stupid! Shared as in everyone gets to see them!”. Some blogs even sided with that view while others said it wasn’t that bad. But it was the way in which this feature was steam-rollered in without consulting people first and the way you can’t opt out if you don’t like it which has got people riled. Even Google fans are shocked that Google doesn’t seem to care that people are upset. Mashable opined that perhaps Google’s patience with their users is running out.

For Google to say that “the shared feed has already been public for quite a long time so why are you over-reacting?” (not a direct quote) is actually quite misleading. Up until this new feature was rolled out, the shared URL was a secret and each Reader user could decide if they wanted to share their URL with people. So lots of people, including this user, were using the secret feed to share industry news and business initiative ideas with trusted colleagues. But now that Google has decided on their own initiative that these feeds are to be shared to the whole world, suddenly those “secret feeds” have been flung open to everyone – including business competitors. So it’s not hard to see why people are extremely angry.

Could this new feature cause Google to lose a lot of Reader users? Will the whole world come crashing down if the Big G doesn’t reverse course and scrap this pale imitation of a social network? Will Google finally get some of the hatred normally specially reserved for Bill Gates and anything Microsoft? Stay tuned.