A spokesperson for Canada’s privacy watchdog said the office was looking into privacy concerns raised by the public over Buzz, but didn’t specify what those concerns were. Google Canada told the CBC it was working with privacy officials, but had no comment about what privacy concerns were being discussed.
Concerns over how Google Buzz treats individual users’ privacy have been wide ranging, and include concerns that Buzz can expose your personal e-mail address and your e-mail contacts. Google has moved quickly, however, to quell privacy concerns and has already made privacy adjustments to Buzz on two separate occasions. Google has publicly apologized over the Buzz privacy issues, and the company also admitted earlier this week to BBC News that its testing process for Buzz was not as rigorous as it could have been.
EPIC Complaint
While Google continues to work with Canadian officials, the search giant may have to contend with an FTC investigation into Buzz’s treatment of user privacy. In a complaint filed on Tuesday with the FTC, EPIC says that “emails and associated information [are] fundamentally private,” and that “email service providers have a particular responsibility to safeguard the personal information that subscribers provide.”
In its complaint, EPIC requests that Google make Buzz a completely opt-in service rather than opt-out; stop using a Gmail users’ private address book to compile a social networking list; and give Buzz users more control over who they connect with on Buzz. You can read the complete EPIC complaint here (PDF download).
Most of those complaints are valid; however, it must be pointed out that almost all social networking services give you the option to import your contacts from a variety of e-mail services and build your network based on that information. Google, however, grabs your contact list automatically and displays a list of contacts it suggests you follow instead of asking you if you want to use your Gmail contacts list on Buzz.