Google buzz was announced on February 9, 2010 at a press conference at the Google headquarters and was released later that day. Within 56 hours of its release, 9 million posts were made on Google Buzz — approximately 160,000 posts and comments per hour.
What’s the Buzz?
Google Buzz is a social networking and messaging tool from Google that is integrated into the company's web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox.
It was thought that the Buzz would serve as a social communication tool that would bridge the gap between work and leisure. The service and it’s release, however, were strongly criticized for taking insufficient consideration of privacy matters.
Google has been criticized in the past for releasing new features too soon. Their approach has been “release now, improve as we go”. One feature in particular on Buzz was widely criticized as a severe privacy flaw. By default Google Buzz publicly disclosed (on the user's Google profile) a list of the names of Gmail contacts that the user has most frequently emailed or chatted with. Users who failed to disable this feature (or did not realize that they had to) could have sensitive information about themselves and their contacts revealed. This has since been adjusted so that users now have to explicitly add information that they want public.
The Lawsuit
· February 16, 2010 Eva Hibnick, a student at Harvard Law, filed a class action lawsuit against Google, alleging Google Buzz violated several federal laws meant to protect privacy.
· On the same day, Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Google Buzz "violated user expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google's privacy policy, and may have violated federal wiretap laws."
The Settlement On November 2, 2010, Google e-mailed Gmail users to tell them about the outcome of the lawsuit. As part of its settlement, Google will create an $8.5 million fund to award money to groups that promote privacy education on the web, of which the prosecuting lawyers are requesting 25% ($2,125,000) "plus reimbursement of costs and expenses".
On March 30, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Google regarding Buzz. In the announcement, the FTC agreed with the EPIC complaint that Google had violated its privacy policies by using information provided for Gmail for another purpose - social networking - without obtaining consumers’ permission in advance.
The Aftermath
Have you heard of Google Buzz before? Have you ever used it?
When joining a social networking site, are you careful to read their privacy terms and conditions?
Awesome post Maureen. I have got to find a way to make my posts more interesting and colorful. That will be my goal for next week. I am seriously not a "seek out the new technology" person. I had not heard of Google Buzz. I have to admit that when I joined Facebook I did not read their privacy terms and conditions at first. However, I was confused about something and decided it was a good idea so I did read most of the conditions. In some ways I can see why Google Buzz did not take off as quickly Google wanted it to. When I look at how easy it is to log onto a social networking site that MOST of my friends are on and be able to communicate with them on a regular basis I doubt I would want to get on another one. (unless my friends all switched) I do not have a desire to spend my entire evening checking multiple email accounts or using multiple networking sites. I guess I took a different view from the privacy angle but it was interesting thinking about how I look at social networking.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree about joining the social network that most of your friends are on. Seriously I can not think of ONE SINGLE FRIEND of mine that does not have facebook. And I can't tell you have many conversations include something like "I saw on facebook..." You can keep up on everyone's life without even having to talk to them. In a way it's kind of sad because it takes the personal aspect out of staying in touch. And I also agree that's I don't want to spend hours of my time checking multiple social networks. Facebook seems to be time consuming enough:)
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of companies put things out before they are ready. In this case it seems like the almighty dollar took front stage Maureen. I have never heard of Google Buzz and it sounds kind of like a cheap knock off of facebook and twitter combined. Did it mention any school systems using it for classrooms?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a lot of google products have fizzled - I remember Google Wave was also going to "revolutionize" email but it was really confusing. Although I do really enjoy using gmail and picasa for my photos.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I didn't spend anytime reading the privacy policy! I don't imagine I would remember it anyway =)
Awe Hah! I do not have Facebook and I'm not interested in it. Does this mean were not friends Maureen :)?
ReplyDeletePrivacy a true topic/issue for all this networking stuff. Who sees what and can I really stop it from happening? A co-worker of mine was just sharing how he ended up with his "face in the mud" because the emails he thought he was sending to one person ended up going to the individuals he was trying to avoid. It was explained as such "a general email went out and he then began to specifically enter a new contact. Well that email info. ended up going out to the others. YIKES!
I wish I wasn't being forced to communicated through all these various networks.
L.J.