FTC complaint filed over Google Buzz

The recently launched Google Buzz social networking service is facing even more controversy today as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a complaint with the FTC. The public interest research group says it's not satisfied with the changes Google made to help alleviate some of the initial security and privacy concerns. EPIC is urging the service to be made available at a user's request, rather than be enabled by default.

At the same time, EPIC doesn't want the address book to be automatically used by the service. Another group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), agrees with EPIC in that Buzz should be accessible on an opt-in basis. The EFF also believes Google abused the trust of its users by taking their address books and has suggested that the company was in a haste to catch up in social networking by pre-populating users' lists without their consent.

Buzz is meant to give Google account users a way of keeping up to date with their friends' photo and video collections, as well as status updates, but immediately drew criticism after public users found out that it gave away private e-mail addresses and would even provide an exact location if the user wasn't paying attention. [via ArsTechnica]

By Electronista Staff