[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-pagesŠ [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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