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 Users of Google Reader now find themselves sharing items with friends through the chat feature in Gmail, aka Google Talk. Frustrated with the need to send people a link to shared items in Google Reader? Got plenty of friends using Gmail or Google Talk? Well pal, Chrix Finne at Google has a deal for you! Editor's Note: It's interesting that Google went the Facebook route on this feature, automatically enabling Google Reader items to be shared with friends in Google Talk, whether you wanted to share those items or not. Is this an opt-out trend developing? Let us know in the comment section. Finne wrote at the Google Reader blog about the new feature. Items that a user of Google Reader marks for sharing automatically makes it to a list of "Friends' shared items" in Google Talk. Most users of Google Reader likely found out about this the same way we did, by logging in to Google Reader and seeing the notice that Google has helpfully made this change. That would be really great, unless of course one has contacts in Google Talk that one normally does not share stories with from their Reader feeds.
Oops. However, Finne noted that Google helpfully included an option to clear items shared in the past, so they don't show up in that Friends' shared items area. That's good. If one doesn't want a friend in Gmail or Google Talk to see shared items, the Settings -> Friends tab in Google Reader allows for hiding shared items from friends as desired. Also good. But this is a feature Finne and company should have made an opt-in on Reader, by allowing the Reader user to unhide shared items from friends instead of sharing them by default and making the user clear items or hide them. That's bad. Imagine opening up one's Gmail, seeing a spouse's shared list, and there are items related to divorce or relocating that the spouse has shared under the previous Reader function with trusted friends. The result could be unpleasant; Google needs to think real-world impact through before going "taa-daa" with one's information.
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 By Jason Lee Miller
Facebookers have made quite a stink about lack of privacy on Facebook, especially when it comes to what information appears in their news feeds. But marketers aren't the only ones mining this unprecedented access to personal relationships; academic types are too. Hundreds of thousands of users voiced their concern when Facebook introduced its news feeds, which automatically posted changes to members made to their profile. They complained even though the information published via the feed was generally "public" information. It shouldn't have been a surprise, then, that there was another uproar (strangely, though, with fewer voices) over Beacon, which published what Facebook users were purchasing on other sites without express permission to do so. Read More...
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Should you sell links? Our featured post today comes from mjtaylor. She has brought up an interesting point. Do you think it's unethical to buy/sell links? Are there benefits or drawbacks to doing this? Tell us your thoughts at WebProWorld. Subscribe to the WebProWorld Feed 
Merriam Webster defines ethics as 1: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation and 2: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values. Google based its search technology on an evaluation of site/page popularity (PageRank or PR), and then publicized the results through its toolbar. Webmasters capitalized on that information by first trading and then buying & selling links to help affect the PR of their own sites. Google's response: don't do it. And please help us stop it. Fine. They have a right to try and stop it, but how does that make buying or selling the commodity they released on the open market, a matter of ethics?
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