Buzz was a great learning experience, says Google, but in a few weeks it will be shut down and all such efforts will be focused on Google Plus. The move will likely come as no surprise to Google-watchers, who noted that Buzz integration with Google+ was minimal. Additionally, the Google Labs page, as previously announced, will disappear after today. "We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google Plus," Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google, wrote in a blog post. Buzz had a relatively short [...]

Related Topics: Google: Buzz | Google: Google+ | Google: Labs | Top News

Google has agreed to have independent privacy audits over the next 20 years, to settle an FTC investigation into wrong doing over its Google Buzz product. The FTC has release a statement where Google agreed to allow independent audits of how Google handles privacy controls. After Google Buzz launched there was a lot of concern of the privacy controls, which lead to an FTC investigation. Google eventually settled for $8.5 million with a few plaintiffs and lawyers. Now, Google has been charged by the Federal Trade Commission for using "deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promi [...]

Related Topics: Google: Business Issues | Google: Buzz | Google: Critics | Legal: Privacy | Legal: Regulation | Top News

There's lots of buzzing and posting this morning based on a couple of tweets from Tim O'Reilly and Steve Case. They state that "Google Circles" (which is "awesome") is going to launch "possibly today." (See updates below.) ReadWriteWeb has a lengthy discussion of the reportedly impending product launch. It's based largely on hearsay but here are the main bullets from that post: The service will offer photo, video and status message sharing Everything shared on Circles is shared "only with the most appropriate circle of social contacts in their lives, not with all your contacts [...]

Related Topics: Google: Buzz | Google: General | Google: Orkut | Google: Social Search

While Google has settled US lawsuits over its Google Buzz product, the company faces a new -- and very similar -- lawsuit originating in Canada. The Winnipeg Free Press reports that Tyler Wereha of Rosa, Manitoba, is suing Google over privacy issues related to last year's Google Buzz launch. The class-action lawsuit doesn't specify damages. Based on what the Free Press is reporting, the lawsuit appears to be raising the same issues brought up in last year's US cases: The statement of claim, filed in Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench last week, alleges anyone who has exchanged at least one [...]

Related Topics: Google: Buzz | Google: Legal | Legal: Privacy

On December 20th, a federal judge in the Bay Area will be asked to approve an $8.5 million settlement between Google and several Gmail users who sued earlier this year over the way Google Buzz was launched in February. If it's approved, the case will become a class action, Gmail users in the U.S. will join the lawsuit by default and will immediately be part of the settlement. (There will be ways for Gmail users to remove themselves from the suit if they wish.) But the settlement offers little benefit for Gmail users outside of the original group of users who sued Google. Why? Because, accor [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: Buzz | Google: Legal | Legal: Privacy | Top News