Unintentionally, Google has created a major buzz about its new social networking service, ironically named Buzz. By automatically turning people’s Gmail email accounts into social networking ones, Google may have broken the trust the account holders have about their privacy. Google certainly seemed to have an idea that they might be invading personal space, making several serious modifications to the Buzz service soon after its launch.
But the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) believed that this was not enough, and filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, requesting more changes to the service.
What exactly did Google do wrong? How did they manage to get these regulatory bodies riled up? In a statement by EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg, the fault seems to lie in not providing a choice to consumers, about if they wanted to join Buzz or not. "E-mail is for private messages. You sign up for social networking to communicate publicly with people, Google tried to turn e-mail into social networking, and that's where they ran into trouble." The EPIC believes that Google indulged in unfair or deceptive trade practices that violate the Federal Trade Commission Act. To begin with, Google never asked people if they wanted to join Buzz. When users logged into their accounts, many might have been irritated/underwhelmed by the ‘offer’ to “Check out Buzz”, and simply continued on to their inbox, by clicking the “Nah, go to my inbox” button. Little did these users know, regardless of whether they did check out Buzz or not, the service was activated.
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