Google Buzz: FTC Reaches Unprecedented Privacy Settlement with Google

As paidContent's Joe Mullin reported in his March 30, 2011 article, In Unprecedented Move, FTC Will Make Google Get Users’ OK To Share Data:

[T]he FTC has reached a settlement with Google, forcing the search giant to meet a privacy rule that no other internet company is currently subject to—it must ask users to “opt-in” before sharing their information. ... This is the first legal action in which the FTC has required a company to make significant alterations to its privacy policy, and it’s suggestive of what the FTC would like to see going forward.

Quoting from yesterday's FTC press release:

Google Inc. has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it launched its social network, Google Buzz, in 2010. The agency alleges the practices violate the FTC Act. The proposed settlement bars the company from future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years. This is the first time an FTC settlement order has required a company to implement a comprehensive privacy program to protect the privacy of consumers’ information. In addition, this is the first time the FTC has alleged violations of the substantive privacy requirements of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework, which provides a method for U.S. companies to transfer personal data lawfully from the European Union to the United States.

(Emphasis added.)

Texts of the FTC Complaint and Proposed Settlement.

On the Official Google Blog yesterday, Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product & Engineering, wrote:

The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control—letting our users and Google down. While we worked quickly to make improvements, regulators—including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission—unsurprisingly wanted more detail about what went wrong and how we could prevent it from happening again. Today, we’ve reached an agreement with the FTC to address their concerns. We’ll receive an independent review of our privacy procedures once every two years, and we’ll ask users to give us affirmative consent before we change how we share their personal information.

We’d like to apologize again for the mistakes we made with Buzz. While today’s announcement thankfully put this incident behind us, we are 100 percent focused on ensuring that our new privacy procedures effectively protect the interests of all our users going forward.

See Whitten's An update on Google Buzz. [JH]