The Google Reader development team inadvertently triggered a storm of criticism earlier in the month when they modified how their RSS reader worked. SiliconValley.com describes the change:
Google Reader has long been equipped with a “share” function, through which you could select certain of your feeds or specific posts to be published to a public Web page. To share your gleanings with someone, you’d send them the address of that public page and they would subscribe to it. That process struck the Google developers as inefficient, so on Dec. 14, they rejiggered things so that if someone was on your list of Google Talk or Gmail contacts and was a user of Reader, he or she would automatically be subscribed to your shared items.
While one can question whether “share” means “to make public” in the minds of users this brings up two points to consider, one for developers and one for users:
- Users could be aware that if they use a web application or a desktop application with an automatic updating feature its developers may change how it works at any point with or without any notification to you.
- Developers need to know that while many changes are readily accepted those involving privacy are accepted much less readily. Any nifty but potentially privacy reducing features should require explicit user acceptance, not turned on until the user notices the change and turns them off – if they can.