No privacy on Buzz worries users

Barely two weeks after its introduction, Google Buzz is currently at the center of a huge online firestorm over the issue of Internet privacy. While the company has begun introducing privacy controls, the damage to Google's credibility may already be done.

Privacy features, which give users the ability to control what information is revealed online, are found in all major networking sites ranging from behemoths like Facebook to thousands of forums on the web. Users are given options to block people from accessing their information and choosing what information to divulge to the public.

At the center of Google's privacy woes is its auto-follow feature. Originally designed to simplify the process of incorporating existing Gmail contacts into Buzz, users were outraged to find that e-mail contacts whom they barely knew were automatically added.

Furthermore, updates from existing services, like Picasa and Reader, were automatically divulged to a user's followers.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public research center in Washington, D.C., filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. "This complaint concerns an attempt by Google, Inc., the provider of a widely used e-mail service, to convert the private, personal information of Gmail subscribers into public information for the company's social network service Google Buzz," the complaint reads. "This change in business practices and service terms violated user privacy expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google's own privacy policy, and may have also violated federal wiretap laws."

Google has made a number of steps to appease users. The auto-follow feature has been permanently disabled and service updates from Google's other online properties are no longer automatically added into Buzz. Users can also opt-out completely from Buzz through a tab in their Gmail settings.

"We quickly realized that we didn't get everything quite right," wrote Todd Jackson, product manager of Gmail and Google Buzz, on the company's blog. "We're very sorry for the concern we've caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We'll continue to do so."

According to the Google Buzz team, the site had only been tested within the company. At that time, privacy concerns did not surface.

Google's Buzz is not the first social networking site to frustrate users. In 2007, Facebook launched Beacon, an advertising system that revealed purchases made by users on external websites. Though designed to help advertisers deliver targeted advertisements to the user's friends, users were outraged that they had been automatically enrolled in the advertising system. While Facebook responded to criticism by changing Beacon automatic enrollment, users still filed a class action lawsuit. In 2009, Facebook retired Beacon.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a paper educating users on basic privacy preservation. Some steps include disabling "cookies" (files that websites leave on your computer to keep track of user habits) and using two e-mails, one for personal business and the other for public spaces. The rest of the paper, titled "EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy" can be found at their website www.eff.org.

This is not Google's first scrape with privacy concerns. Over the years, many users and analysts have been wary of Google's practice of linking search statistics to user queries.

However, Google maintains that all data collected from its users is anonymous.