Seems like there’s a bit of a hubaloo around Google’s recently changed settings with respect to its “Shared” feature function in Google Feed Reader — mainly in that Google decided, a couple of weeks ago, to include a new feature where things that you’ve marked as shared will automatically show up in your friend’s Google Reader under a new section.

This has some folks crying foul, as this smacks of a unilateral move to obliterate one’s sense of privacy. Others say that this is merely the meaning of the word “share”, so what’s up with that?

Ultimately this is how you define the word share, and in this case, how Google defines the word “share” (almost like how Bill Clinton defined the word “is”?) Its clear from Google’s own support folks that they fall into the latter camp, from the above, where they feel that if you’ve shared it, you’ve implicitly given your permission to share it with the world. Heck, that’s what the shared function means, where your shared news feeds show up on a link which is — quite literally — accessible by the whole world.

The people who feel maligned by this either

a) don’t know about the latter, or, probably and more like

b) know about the latter, but know that most people — let’s say, important personal people, such as friends, family, co-workers … very *specific* groups who you aren’t explicitly sharing with — don’t know that this function even exists.

Robert Scoble has hit the nail on the head with the term Granular Privacy Controls, which Facebook does pretty well (and has had to do well with, given the level of scrutiny that its gotten).

At the end of the day, people should have control over where their data goes – not the hosting service. And there should be absolutely no ambiguity over how that information is shared. Yes, on one hand, it makes the people who are complaining about this service feel like whiny crybabies because JEEBUS, don’t they understand what the word “shared” means?

But on the other hand, I think its clear that people who feel violated don’t share the same definition of the word or the term, even if Google had outlined things in their terms of service (which no one reads). And I’m pretty sure it has to do with the knowledge that even if one puts up things up on the web through an exotic link, there is the realization that no one will find unless you directly send it to folks.

(Heck, its one thing to even set up a blog with your real name without telling anyone, or blog under your real name for that matter. I rank number one for “Tony Hung” via the BlogHerald, and no one at my workplace or school still knows I blog unless I tell anyone about it)

Or, put it another way, its because those folks who have used the share button might *not* have wanted their things explicitly, in fact, shared with “everyone” – there being a distinction between the “everyone” of the world wide web, who might know or care about you, and the “everyone” including the very personal people you might have corresponded with or chatted with.

And in that sense, I think Google was wrong to make that assumption. Sure, you might sound like a whiny crybaby about it, but at the end of the day, I think there are not many golden rules about online behaviour; but explicit control of your own information is surely one of them.

And in that regard, Google could have handled it a lot better.