Google Buzz Over Before it Began?

Lesley Gross - February 23, 2010

Google Buzz was introduced to the world just a few short weeks ago as a new Social Media tool that allows for sharing of status updates, images, and videos via a new Gmail tab called Google Buzz. However in that short time, it has garnered plenty of attention and publicity. Unfortunately for Google, most of it hasn’t been the good kind. The search giant is being slammed by many outlets for Buzz’s lack of privacy, by sharing personal information without a user’s consent. Basically Google was ‘making’ you socially connected with people that you share email information with, which for all of us is a pretty scary concept.

Stories flew around about people getting caught cheating and women being reconnected with abusive ex-husbands. Very quickly, Buzz was tarnished. Google quickly scrambled to adjust their privacy settings in order to placate their users. These new options give users more control over the information you want shared.

But it’s far from over… Not a week later, Google is involved in a local class action complaint, where a Florida resident claims they have broken several electronic communications laws. It’s only a matter of time until we hear about more of these types of cases. 

It’s concerning to watch such a giant corporation go through the deployment of a new product with so many bumps in a short span of time. It will be very interesting to see how Google responds and reacts to all the ‘buzz’ on Google Buzz.