How to kill your Google Buzz

UPDATE: Google has changed a lot of things earlier today. Here is a post from the Google blog detailing these changes. Google now provides a one-click option to kill Buzz completely.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Google provides no way to opt out of Buzz, which seems obtuse. And scary.

My primary complaint with it (apart from the fact that I don’t want it at all and that I have no way of opting out) is that it shares my Google Reader shares, Picasa albums and Google Talk status updates by default. It seems to think these bits of information can be freely distributed to anyone I’ve ever mailed from my Gmail account.

There is a “turn off” option. However, this doesn’t delete your Buzz, it merely ensures that you don’t see it. Which means that Picasa sharing, GTalk status updates etc just go on as before – except you don’t get to see it.

Here is what I think might be a comprehensive kill:

•  Open your Google Buzz. Click on “Connected sites” near the top text-box.
• Dissociate all the “connected” sites from your Buzz account.
•  Save these settings.
• You might also want to individually clear out your followers and the list of people you follow, just to be safe. The only way to do this now is to bring up the lists and individually click "unfollow" against everyone's name. This is probably going to be tedious. Just following all the other steps may negate the need for it, but if you think you need that level of privacy, go ahead.
• Come back to your Gmail inbox and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
• Right at the bottom, you should see a “turn off Buzz” option. Click on this.
• Go to profiles.google.com, click on "About me" and change any details that you may have inadvertently made public in Buzz-induced hysteria. You may want to uncheck the option that publicizes your followers and the people you follow.
• Save this profile.
• Additionally, check your Picasa privacy settings and your Google Reader privacy settings to make sure they have not been changed by Buzz. Some of my Picasa albums were made public for a while.

This should kill all automatic activity on your Buzz account and keep previously private data private (though technically, the Buzz account still exists).

There might still be things that Buzz is doing by default that I may not be aware of. If any additional required deactivations come to my notice, I will update this.

Also, if anyone reading this has further suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.