And yet people are suddenly freaking out that Google Reader now shares your shared items with people you have communicated with on Google Talk. The shared items show up right there in Google Reader, making it easy to see what people you know are reading. People are acting like this is suddenly a new thing that what you have chosen to share with the world is being shared with people you have "spoken" to.
I am not the only person who thinks that people are over-reacting. As I have said, sharing is not new and it has always been to the entire Internet. I guess having it be an opt-out thing (since Google Reader automatically adds people) instead of an opt-in thing (like having people subscribe to an RSS feed) bugs people. But that is more of an annoyance than some great invasion of privacy or something to cause people to freak out to the level they have been. Google is not sharing feed items that you as a user had not explicitly stated you wanted shared, so there is no privacy invasion. People just need to calm down.
