[LINK] CW: 'Privacy group swats Google Buzz'
Roger Clarke
Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Thu Feb 11 17:17:53 AEDT 2010
Privacy group swats Google Buzz
Australian Privacy Foundation says new social networking tool may
share a little more than you might wish
Tim Lohman (Computerworld)
11 February, 2010 16:19
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/335937/privacy_group_swats_google_buzz/?fp=2&fpid=1
Google Buzz has come under heavy criticism from the Australian
Privacy Foundation, which believes the new social networking tool has
major privacy flaws.
Speaking to Computerworld AustraliaAPF chair, Dr Robert Clarke, said
the automatic roll out of the tool to Gmail users, and its automatic
addition of followers based on email usage, was of concern.
"Personal data about them has been re-purposed without formal notice
to them, and without consent," Clarke said. "Specifically, each Gmail
subscriber's associations with 'other people' are being disclosed to
other 'other people'. This is quite possibly illegal use and
disclosure of personal data without consent."
Clarke said the approach to user privacy was "amazingly naïve" for a
corporation that professed to "know a lot about you".
"People don't have a single identity, and they don't have a single
network of contacts. They have multiple identities, and different
sets of contact networks associated with each of them," he said. "For
many people it's an unhelpful jumbling of networks, for others it's
an unwanted intrusion, and for others it's threatening".
Launched this week Buzz is touted as holding the promise of
addressing one of the major failings of social networking apps to
date: Filtering out the gushing torrent of inanities flowing from
people who are, in effect, complete strangers.
Google is pitching Buzz, accessible from within Gmail, as a new way
to share updates, photos, videos, among other things and a way to
start conversations about the topics of interest to users.
According to Google's Buzz privacy policy users of the tool may have
information recorded about their use of the product, such as the
posts they like or comment on and the other users with whom they
communicate, in order to provide "a better experience on Buzz and
other Google services and to improve the quality of Google services".
"Your name, photo, and the list of people you follow and people
following you will be displayed on your Google profile, which is
publicly searchable on the Web," the policy reads.
"If you are following someone who publicly displays their list of
followers on their Google profile, then you will appear on that
person's public list. Likewise, if someone is following you and
displays the list of people they follow on their profile, then you
will appear on that public list."
On top of effectively taking a Gmail user's address book and making
it public, Buzz also collects the location data of users running the
tool on a mobile device.
"A further aspect of potentially very serious concern is the
statement in the Privacy Policy that 'your location will be collected
by Google and displayed to other users, as described when you first
attempt to use Buzz on a mobile device'," Clarke said.
"This implies that location-display may be opt-out, not
consent-based. And of course the personal data in this case is
potentially highly-sensitive, from a personal safety perspective."
Clarke added that while Gmail users may have technically consented to
the sharing of their personal information when first signing up to
Gmail, the spirit of end-user privacy was not being respected.
"There may be some lawyers' weasel-words somewhere in the labyrinth
of Policies, FAQs, Blog posts and Principles web-pages [but] those
weasel-words abjectly fail the crucial characteristics of consent,
which are that it be informed, and freely-given," he said.
"Despite longstanding attempts by US corporations and the US FTC,
'opt-out' is not consent, and can never be consent."
In January, Google released its Privacy Principles in a bid to
reassure users over the way the Internet giant collects, stores,
uses, and shares their data.
--
Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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