Google Buzz dispute heads to court and regulators
Google’s ill-fated launch of its social networking service Buzz has prompted both a class action lawsuit and a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. It follows accusations that the service failed to respect user privacy.
The lawsuit is officially filed on behalf of Florida user Eva Hibnick, accusing Google of breaching electronic communications laws, for example by revealing some of a user’s online activity to other users without prior permission. As a class action suit, it can be joined by anyone in similar circumstances rather than them having to file a separate case.
The FTC complaint comes from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It says that although many social networking sites raise privacy issues similar to those of Buzz, the difference is that Gmail users did not sign up with any expectation their information might be shared in this way.
Google has already apologized for some elements of the launch and acknowledged the poor response might have been foreseen had it done external user testing.
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