Yes, it's being debated: http://www.techmeme.com/100210/p66#a100210p66

I had to click a button to enable Buzz. Did they change their sign-up policy at some point?

Same here - logged into Gmail and I was forced to choose whether to go into Buzz or old fashioned Gmail. Maybe they're tinkering with the process or something...

I'd have to agree, though, that the default of following everyone that you e-mail is a bit extreme, especially if everyone else can see it, too. Probably better to at least offer people a choice, either follow all, follow none, or manually select.

As far as privacy violations go, though, I don't see this one as very major. I'd expect that with all the complaining going on, this behavior will be changed very soon.

Me, too.

It was available for mobile users immediately, but it also didn't seem to be integrated into mobile GMail when I first looked at it.

I was just going to post saying I didn't think they invaded privacy because they don't post anything by default, so if you don't do anything with it it just sits there, but then I remembered that they _do_ link Picasa and Reader by default, so that's pretty bad, yeah. I know that it autofollowed and auto-subscribed some workmates with whom I don't want to share anything which wasn't explicitly intended for them.

So, Buzz would be fine if it just left everything alone, but I would be pissed if I actually used Picasa or Reader and my activity got published without my explicit approval.

I also want to control who can follow me -- if that option exists right now, I haven't found it. I don't want casual acquaintances or workmates to see things I post, even if they've subscribed to me.