Despite numerous attempts by Google to control the damage caused by its controversial privacy settings in its newly launched social networking tool Buzz, it has again been targeted by a lawsuit yet again.
This time from one Barry Feldman of New York, whose team of lawyers has accused Google off violating Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Federal Wiretap Act and Federal Stored Communications Act.
Google’s Buzz social networking tool, which has been integrated with its Gmail email service, was greeted with heavy criticism after it was found that social networking tool was in serious violation of every possible privacy law in the country.
Buzz, without bothering to take users’ permission, had automatically created ‘follower’ lists using people’s most frequent and recent email recipients. It went a bit further when it started to display private user information including recently emailed users and other sensitive information.
The latest lawsuit, which was filed by the New Yorker at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, claims that “Google Buzz made private data belonging to Gmail users publicly available without the users’ knowledge or authorization.”
