Privacy officials from 10 countries complained Monday to Google about its Buzz and Street View services. A letter sent to CEO Eric Schmidt called for the search giant to follow “fundamental privacy principles” when it develops other such services.
The letter was written by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and cosigned by comparable officials in nine other nations — France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. It said the signers were concerned that “privacy rights for the world’s citizens are being forgotten” in new Google products. Google has not commented on the letter.
‘A Disappointing Disregard’
The privacy officials said Google Buzz, “in essence,” took Gmail, a private one-to-one e-mail service, and turned it into a social-networking service. Initially, Buzz automatically created “followers” from the list of a user’s most frequent contacts. This was done, according to the letter, “without adequately informing Gmail users about how this new service would work or providing sufficient information to permit informed consent decisions,” and it therefore violated a basic principle that users should be able to control their private information.
In the letter, Stoddart and colleagues noted that the uproar about making personal information public “should have been readily apparent.” They added that the Google Buzz rollout in early February “betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws.”
The letter also noted that “launching a product in ‘beta’ form is not a substitute for ensuring that new services comply with fair-information principles before they are introduced.” It conceded that Google, “to your credit,” apologized and quickly tried to repair the damage.
Six Fundamental Privacy Principles
Google’s Street View was also the object of the privacy commissioners’ ire. It was launched in some countries, they said, “without due consideration of privacy and data-protection laws and cultural norms.”
Six points are articulated in the…