House Lawmakers Voice Concern About Google Buzz
A group of House Energy and Commerce members are urging the FTC to investigate complaints that Google's Buzz social networking service and some of its other services may harm consumer privacy.
In a letter sent late last week to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the lawmakers urged the agency to investigate whether Google disclosed personal information about its customers without their consent as part of the launch of Buzz in February. Buzz's launch sparked complaints from users because it initially automatically signed users up for the service and used Gmail contact lists to create lists of possible friends. Google has made numerous changes to Buzz since its launch to address such concerns.
The letter also asks the FTC to probe how much Google uses personal information collected from Buzz and its other services to target ads and how Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob will affect how it delivers ads.
"We are writing to express our concern over claims that Google's 'Google Buzz' social networking tool breaches online consumer privacy and trust," according to the letter signed by Reps. John Barrow, D-Ga., who led the effort, Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, Mike Burgess, R-Texas, G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., Tim Murphy, R-Pa., Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Steve Scalise, R-La., Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton, R-Texas as well as Del. Donna Christensen, D-V.I.
"Due to the high number of individuals whose online privacy is affected by tools like this - either directly or indirectly - we feel that these claims warrant the commission's review of Google's public disclosure of personal information of consumers through Google Buzz," they added.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the FTC in February raising many of the same issues cited by the lawmakers.
In a statement in response to the letter, Google said "user transparency and control are very important to us, and we review all products carefully before we roll them out. When we realized that we'd unintentionally made many of our users unhappy, we moved quickly to make significant product improvements to address their concerns. Our door is always open to discuss additional ways to improve our products and services moving forward."
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