Google Facing Lawsuit Over Buzz
by Editor, Web Wise Business (23 February 2010)
If you spend any significant amount of time online reading blogs or on sites such as Twitter, then chances are you will have heard about the latest product from Google - Buzz.
Buzz is being touted as Google's answer to social media giants
Twitter and Facebook, taking the features of these two sites and applying the company's search and location expertise.
Arriving somewhat late to the party however, Google Buzz aimed to get over the hurdle that would no doubt stop many people from using it - the chore of having to become familiar with, and build up your connections on yet another social media service, by building the functionality into the accounts of those already using GMail.
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On February 9th, GMail users were introduced to Buzz as a new tab appearing under their inbox.Yet rather than having users send invites to their friends or contacts to join them on Buzz, Google designed the application to draw on user's GMail history to create their network of people they already have connected with. In short, if you had already emailed or Gtalked with someone, you were now automatically connected with them on Buzz...
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....And that's exactly where the problem begins. Intended as a better way of managing the ever growing stream of social networking information, but privacy concerns arising from the automated connection of users have caused a fallout from privacy campaigners and agrieved users.
Numerous complaints online, appearing shortly after Buzz was launched, caused Google to quickly make changes to some features. Then came a complaint to the FTC from the Electronic Privacy Information Centre. From here, things continued to get worse as a class action lawsuit was filed against the search giant last week in federal court in California.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Eva Hibnick, a GMail user and second year student at Harvard Law School, seeks to include all 31.2 million GMail users as potential plaintiffs. When Buzz was rolled out to these users, in at least some cases the feature was automatically activated on user's accounts, generating publically accessable lists of followers gleaned from users' GMail accounts and Gtalk conversations and raising real concerns that sensitive information related to some contacts could have been exposed for public consumption.
While Google have since made numerous changes and adjustments to Buzz to make it easier to opt out of the service and make contact lists private, privacy campaigners argue that the moves do not go far enough to secure the privacy of Google Buzz and GMail users.
Google have yet to publically comment on the lawsuit.