Google's new "Buzz" service launched a variety of privacy concerns Commentary
Google's new "Buzz" service launched a variety of privacy concerns
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Brock N. Meeks [Director of Communications, Center for Democracy & Technology]: "Recently, tens of millions of Google Gmail users woke up to find the company had automatically placed them in a membership queue for its new social networking tool called "Buzz." No one had a say in whether or not to turn Buzz on because Google had already "turned it on" for every Gmail user on the planet. Big mistake.

Buzz allows Gmail users to interact with others in the Buzz community in a variety of ways that can be integrated with other Google products such as Picasa, Google Reader, etc. The move is a bold one for Google, representing its most ambitious attempt to-date to weave together otherwise disparate services and data sources.

The most immediate privacy concern Buzz presented was that it unwittingly "unmasked" the real registered name behind whatever "nickname" a Gmail user might have chosen for him or herself; that real registered name was then revealed to some random subset of people that were (again) automatically selected from the user's Gmail contact list. And if a user followed the Buzz sign-up procedure, a mandatory step if you wanted to actually gain the ability to post messages, that users' most private and personal contacts – a lawyer, a lover, a licensed medial clinic – were potentially at risk of discovery by others inside a Gmail user's contact list. The potential privacy fiasco resulting from such comingling of contacts is easy to surmise.

The mobile application that allows Buzz users to follow along using a handheld device posed another kind of privacy risk, namely, that it can track a user's exact location and broadcast it to every other Buzz member in the world. And since Buzz is integrated with Google Maps, the service was kind enough to even pinpoint your location on a street map, which is also accessible to other Buzz members (Turning off or declining any message asking to use your device's "location services" is a quick fix to deep-six this tracking capability).

The good news is that Google, having suffered an immediate and withering amount of backlash from its users, quickly addressed the major privacy concerns and is actively working on solutions to others. The "bad news" is that one of the more innovative companies in the world utterly failed to follow established principles of Privacy by Design. In its rush to push Buzz out the door, the company put some of the most personal information it holds at risk.

The stealth launch of a product is uncharacteristic of Google and the blowback will no doubt leave a bright shining scar as a reminder of what not to do in the future. It should also be a head's up for Google's skunkworks engineers when considering new products and services that are tightly integrated with existing data-rich products. On an individual product development basis Google has been good about adopting industry-leading privacy practices. Buzz, however, is a textbook case of why privacy advocates continue to view Google with a wary eye. Meanwhile, Google's turn-on-a-dime response to implement fixes to the most troubling privacy issues, should return a measure of good will to the company.

Today's Internet user is empowered and not afraid to flex muscles born of its collective activist success. For this reason alone, any company thinking of rolling out a new social media platform or application should first do extensive, privacy-centered testing."

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