More on Google Reader’s New Sharing Feature

Michael Heilemann writes in defense of Google Reader’s new “every item you ‘share’ is shared with all your Google contacts” feature.

Even he admits, though, that there clearly ought to be a way to opt out of it. I personally only use Google Reader to follow a handful of feeds from my iPhone, and I’ve never used the sharing feature. But the way that feature used to work created an expectation not of security, but of privacy. Your shared items were protected by an obfuscated URL. This new feature is burning anyone who took advantage of that.

★ Wednesday, 26 December 2007