17 February 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Google Buzz accused of breaking privacy laws

Google's new social networking service offered through Gmail has been accused of breaking privacy laws, leading the Mountain View giant to revise its Google Buzz service twice within the past week.

The BBC reports that leading privacy group EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Centre) has made a complaint about Google Buzz to the US Federal Trade Commission, urging its regulators to investigate the service which it claims is breaking consumer protection laws.

The privacy group called Google's unrolling of its social network to its 176 million email users "deceptive." EPIC consumer privacy counsel Kim Nguyen explained that despite the search giant's efforts to change the service following initial complaints: "Google still hasn't gone far enough.

"Twitter is a social networking site and people know what they are signing up for. With Gmail, users signed up for an e-mail service not a social networking service.

"Despite all the changes, they still do not give users a meaningful way to opt into it."

The lack of a sufficient opt-in feature has been the main controversy surrounding Google Buzz since its introduction last week, with many users criticising the ready-made circle of friends automatically created by the service, which is based on contacts emailed most regularly.

EPIC's complaint has requested that the FTC "require Google to provide Gmail users with opt-in consent to the Google Buzz service," and furthermore to "require Google to provide notice to and request consent from Gmail users before making material changes to their privacy policy in future, and seek appropriate injunctive and compensatory relief."

The privacy group previously lodged a similar complaint against Facebook when the social networking site unveiled new privacy settings, which recently led to the site being forced to redraft its privacy policy.

Google has publicly apologised to users and said it acted quickly to address concerns, introducing an option allowing users to disable the service. Google Buzz product manager Todd Jackson said: "If it becomes clear that people don't think we've done enough, we'll make more changes." He also said that Google's users were "rightfully upset" and that the firm was "very, very sorry."

Although the service was trialed before its introduction, Mr Jackson admitted that testing may have been inadequate, stating: "We've been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn't quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild."

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