Why the hell does Google Buzz think I am Chris Messina?

Google is weird. I mean seriously weird. Or maybe it’s just Google Buzz.

With all the Facebook privacy issues going on right now I thought I’d go and check out Google Buzz. I’d heard a rumour you couldn’t delete your profile. On the face of it, it would appear you can. At the bottom of the Edit Profile page, there is a link to deleting your Buzz profile which says “This will disable Google Buzz integration in Gmail and delete your Google profile and Buzz posts. It will also disconnect any connected sites and unfollow you from anyone you are following.”

Fine, that’s good enough for me. It may well be that Google retains data whether I know it or not. I pretty much assume Google keeps everything. That’s not what caught my eye.

What got my attention were the other profiles Google was “suggesting” I add to mine. About 90% of them turned out to be about links to “Factory Joe”, the old user handle used by Chris Messina, Semantic Web advocate and now at Google.

This seems pretty hilarious. I have met Chris once or twice but I rarely blog about him or his work as I mainly write about tech companies in Europe. So the fact that Google Buzz has this association is very, very odd.

On the left you can see all of Buzz’s suggestions and on the right you can see my actual profiles.

Update: Chris responds as to why this is.