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Facebook Plunges Again
Google Buzz faces privacy lawsuit
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that a class action complaint has been filed against Google -- alleging that they broke the law by sharing users' private data without their consent via Google Buzz. Although Google quickly responded to the privacy concerns and disabled the autofollow feature that connects new Buzz users automatically to their most frequently-emailed contacts Eva Hibnick, a Florida woman, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday.
The legal complaint accuses Google of breaking various electronic communications laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Google turned Gmail "into a social networking service and that's not what they signed up for, Google imposed that on them without getting their consent," said Kimberly Nguyen, consumer privacy counsel with EPIC of Washington, D.C. Nguyen continued, "The bottom line is, users should have meaningful control over their information."
Google has remained predictably tight-lipped to this point, saying only "We haven't yet been served, so we can't comment on the suit until we've had a chance to review it."
If you're worried about your privacy and want to kill the auto-follow feature off see our article on how to turn off Buzz or our complete Buzz coverage here.
[Via San Francisco Chronicle]
Comments
8
Subscribe to commentshmmFeb 18th 2010 8:25AM
The lawsuit came this late only people have been giving a little too much leeway to Google for their 'Don't do evil' policy (of course imho). If it had been Microsoft, God knows what would have happened till now.
hmmFeb 19th 2010 1:57AM
Oops missed the 'because' in the first line.
DuffinFeb 18th 2010 8:29AM
Ugh...only in America can you sue a company for changing how you use a FREE service...I really wish the judge would laugh this woman out of the courtroom...
I understand the privacy concerns, but they have been pretty much fixed and Google has publicly apologized for the screw-up. What else can they possibly be expected to do?
Oliver KomadinaFeb 18th 2010 9:08AM
IMHO the privacy concerns are 100% founded.
Google is a data hydra, and user privacy on this level has to be #1 topic.
PeterFeb 18th 2010 10:09AM
@Duffin - You're missing the point. Just because you aren't paying for the service, doesn't mean the company can violate the law or its own terms of service. The fact that you don't pay for it is irrelevant.
JayenkaiFeb 18th 2010 12:55PM
So... don't use it?
PeterFeb 18th 2010 1:46PM
That's easy to say now. They exposed your information without asking you and without giving you the option to not use it. Buzz, and it's privacy issues, was forced on all Gmail users whether they wanted it or not.
der_tuxmanFeb 18th 2010 1:49PM
Well, don't use GMail either. So do I.