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Google Prompting Users to Review Buzz Privacy Settings

by Terrence O'Brien on April 5, 2010 at 12:45 PM

Google Prompting Users to Review Buzz Privacy Settings

Google may be relatively new to the social networking scene, but the company is proving to be a quick study. After the undeniable debacle that was the Buzz launch, Google moved quickly to clean up the mess it had made by automatically connecting users to their most frequent contacts. Now, the company is planning to completely reboot its privacy settings, and, starting today, will be asking users to review all of their options.

When logging into Gmail (unless they've disabled Buzz entirely), users will be asked to look over their settings: to what sites they connect, whom they follow and who is following them. The settings aren't new, but they do represent a big step towards more transparency and customer interaction. Perhaps more importantly for Google, though, the move might appease Congress and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which asked the FTC to open an investigation into privacy concerns surrounding the launch of Buzz.

While we're not about to give Google a pass for the botched launch of its Twitter and Facebook competitor, we are happy to see the company bringing these privacy concerns into the spotlight. We guess it's better late than never. [From: BBC, via: Lifehacker]

Tags: buzz, gmail, google, google buzz, GoogleBuzz, privacy, security, socialnetworking, top, twitter, web

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