Google faces law suits over Buzz, privacy violation
The company has been forced into making changes in the format of its social networking arm buzz, after a series of complaints were filed in the US courts. Despite corrective measures, many still feel Google has ripped their privacy.
GOOGLE PLANNED to pit buzz against social networking rival facebook and twitter, but it looks like the stalwart has a long way to go before it can even find acceptance. People using gmail were shocked to see their details (who they are following) being made public without any approval or consent.
Within a week of its launch, google has received complaints from people accusing “jeopardizing journalists’ sources”, “helping stalkers” and misleading people into making wrong assumptions. Buzz lets users publish photos and text to groups of friends or to the entire world, also automatically links the public parts of users’ Google Reader and Picasa accounts. So, if a Buzz user uploaded a public photo it would automatically be sent to their “followers” online. The privacy backlash has been going on over the past week and google is seriously looking into making amends. Google admitted that the social media service add-on to Gmail violated privacy of users by letting out who they often communicated with. A privacy group has filed a complaint with US regulators, and Canada’s privacy commissioner. Google launched buzz last Tuesday by auto-generating a list of Gmail users who e-mailed or IM-ed each other most often. Reportedly, Google tested the social networking site Buzz among its office staff and it became an instant hit with the internal people. Based on the results, Google launched the service to all Gmail users at once. Generally, google has always relied on proper invites for subscription to its products (as it happened with Gmail) but in this case—not seeking consent of users backfired. “Getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild,” product manager Todd Jackson told the Wall Street Journal. “We needed to launch to the public and get feedback from users.” A much preferred social networking facebook, though promises no breach of security, but it makes anyone look at the list of friends saying that it is “public information.” Google has quickly reacted, apologizing and issuing a series of amends. Google Reader and Picasa are no longer auto-linked to your public Buzz profile. Other changes include a bigger notification about public follower lists, a way to block anyone who wants to follows you and a Buzz tab in Gmail to make it easier to turn on and off. Despite the corrective measures, many still feel Google has ripped off their privacy. Adding insult to injury are confusing on-off buttons, which deactivate seeing Buzz within Gmail — but don’t remove Buzz’s features from people’s Google’s profile. The backlash proves that Google should have made Buzz users decide whether to publish their follower lists publicly or not — rather than deciding that their default answer was Yes.
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