Google Buzz Gets Scolded By Privacy Officals

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is being criticized by data protection officials from 10 countries for his company's handling of the launch of Google Buzz and asked the company to commit to building greater privacy protections into services.

Jennifer Staddart, privacy commissioner of Canada sent the scolding letter signed by her counterparts in France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The letter stated that the officials were concerned that the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten when Google releases new technological applications. They were disturbed by the recent roll out of the Google Buzz social networking application which is a complete disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws

The letter also noted that Google has a history of privacy problems with its services, particularly Google Maps Street View.

Google Buzz, which launched in February, was an attempt to hasten the process of creating a social network by designating Gmail users contacts as followers. Googles attempt to catch up with the phenomenal growth of Facebook, backfired by exposing relationships that users expected would remain private.

Google apologized and made some changes to the service. Earlier this month, the company attempted to start over again by asking users to reconfirm their Buzz settings.