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Feb. 18, 2010

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) complained to federal regulators on Feb. 16 about Google's new Buzz social networking site, saying it violates U.S. federal consumer protection laws.

EPIC filed its complaint with the Federal Trade Commission just a few days after Google altered its service to address increased privacy concerns from various groups. EPIC is a non-profit privacy watchdog group.

EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg said in a statement "this is a significant breach of consumers' expectations of privacy. Google shouldn't be allowed to push users' personal information into a social network they never asked for or requested. This is unacceptable."

Google launched its new Buzz website as part of Gmail a week ago, and now the search giant has come under severe criticism for automatically creating public circles of friends for users based on their most frequent Gmail contacts.

Last Saturday, Google modified its service to merely suggest contacts for its users' social networks. Still, it's too little, too late many say.

Despite these minor changes, EPIC argues that privacy violations still remain because Google automatically signs up Gmail users for Buzz, rather than waiting for them to do so out of their own will, or simply opt in for the service.

EPIC wants the Federal Trade Commission to require Google to make Buzz a "fully opt-in" service. It also wants the company barred from using Gmail address book contacts to compile social networking lists, since this would cause even more privacy concerns for users.

However, Google still insists that it gives its users control because, even though it adds a "Buzz" link to all Gmail accounts, users must still click on the link and agree to activate the service. Google also gives users the option to disable Buzz if they wish to do so, the company claims.

In response to the EPIC complaint, Google said it has already made some changes to Buzz based on user feedback and has "more improvements in the works to come soon."

A Google representative added "we look forward to hearing more suggestions from our users and we will continue to improve the "Buzz" experience with full user transparency and control."

It will be interesting to see if in the coming weeks other privacy groups and other consumer watchdog agencies follow suit with EPIC's initiatives.

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Source: The Electronic Privacy Information Center.