Internet giant Google has proposed paying some $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over privacy violations that occurred when it launched its Buzz social networking service earlier this year. Some 30 percent of the proposed settlement money would go towards legal fees associated with the case, $2,500 each would go to the seven Gmail users who brought the suit, and the remainder would be split amongst organizations that promote online privacy and privacy education. Google admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, which still must be approved by a judge.
Complaints about Google Buzz centered on making the service an opt-in option—instead of something automatically enabled for Gmail users—and giving users control over who the service put them in contact with. Initially, Google Buzz automatically generated a social network using contacts in users address books and corpus of Gmail messages, effectively publishing a list of Gmail users’ most-frequent contacts. Although the service was useful for some people, well-publicized cases of privacy violations include journalists having sources exposed, employees having their jobs put in jeopardy from social contacts with competitors employees, and private information suddenly being distributed to abusive ex-spouses.
As part of the settlement, Google would agree to engage in more use education about the privacy aspects of Google Buzz.
After launching Buzz and enduring a deluge of complaints, Google moved rapidly to revamp its privacy settings and initial startup experience, revising the startup experience, making privacy settings more accessible and adding additional controls.
