FTC charges Google with 'deceptive privacy practices'

ASPIRING SOCIAL NETWORK Google has been charged with deceptive privacy practices by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its rollout of Buzz.

Google Buzz was the firm's attempt to launch a social notworking service that leveraged Gmail users' contacts. It turned out to be one of the firm's biggest embarrassments, with thousands of users complaining that they were enrolled into Buzz without giving consent, making their email contacts available to others. Now Google has decided to settle with the FTC over charges that it used "deceptive tactics" and "violated its own privacy promises to consumers".

The FTC claims Google's settlement is the first that requires a company to implement a "comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years". However, it isn't the first time firms had to agree to 20 years of audits, as last year three credit report resellers also reached a settlement with the FTC agreeing to 20 years of audits.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz was stark in his assessment of the situation, saying that companies need to honour privacy pledges they make, adding, "This is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honour its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections into all of its operations."

Google for its part made a contrite apology saying, "The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control-letting our users and Google down." It added, "We'd like to apologize again for the mistakes we made with Buzz."

Last year Google agreed to pay $8.5 million in damages to Buzz users who claimed the firm had violated their privacy. At the time Google claimed that it had not violated any laws.

Buzz has come to symbolise Google's floundering attempts to get into the social notworking game. By reaching this settlement with the FTC, perhaps Google can move on from this debacle to find a way to compete with Facebook and Twitter.

However with one FTC settlement behind it, Google might find users more wary of anything it does in this area. µ