Google, FTC make deal regarding privacy issues

Google on Wednesday announced that it has come to an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission regarding the lack of privacy controls in its Buzz feature that's tied into Gmail. Under the deal with the FTC, Google will undergo an independent review of its privacy procedures every two years. Google will also ask users to grant consent before it makes any changes to how it shares personal information.

The problem even saw a class action lawsuit that Google settled, and forced the software giant to set up an $8.5 million fund to inform users about privacy risks online. Buzz auto-enrolled users into the real-time update system by default and also failed to give much control over how much information was shared. Updates contained location information by default.

Google was apologetic about the issue, and assured users similar problems wouldn't happen again.

By Electronista Staff