Google clarifies Buzz privacy issue

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that users who complained about privacy invasions by Google Buzz were subject to "confusion".

The company has been on the back foot since last Tuesday, reacting to a storm of criticism about the way Buzz — which brings elements of social networking into its Gmail service — works. It made a series of tweaks to the system over the weekend and has since apologised for angering many users.

But talking to phone industry executives at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Schmidt said that nobody had been harmed by Buzz and that the problems were merely the result of poor communication.

"I would say that we did not understand how to communicate Google Buzz and its privacy," he said. "There was a lot of confusion when it came out on Tuesday, and people thought that somehow we were publishing their email addresses and private information, which was not true.

"I think it was our fault that we did not communicate that fact very well, but the important thing is that no really bad stuff happens in the sense that nobody's personal information was disclosed."

Schmidt's assertions will come as a shock to privacy campaigners, who had complained that Buzz could inadvertently reveal people's e-mail addresses in public, as well as lists of people's most popular contacts.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation had called for people to carefully review their privacy settings.

"Google attempted to jump start Buzz with lists drawn from its successful Gmail and Gchat services," said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl last week. "While this may help Buzz grow and save users the time to type in all their contacts, it also has an inherent danger of inadvertent disclosure of private information."

Critics

Among the most notable critics of Buzz's potential to invade privacy was a blogger going by the pseudonym Harriet Jacobs, who said that she was a marital rape survivor and had had her privacy invaded because the system thought she would like to be connected to her abusive ex-husband.

His comments also come as a stark contrast to other efforts by the company to appease complaints, including a public relations offensive to quash upset over the way Google Buzz works.

Earlier on Tuesday, Buzz product manager Todd Jackson had told the BBC that the company was "very, very sorry" and that users were "rightfully upset".

However, Schmidt did acknowledge that the company had been making changes to the service in order to allay people's fears.

Incredibly explicit

"Since Tuesday we have made a series of changes to the product which make some very fundamental changes in the way that you initially experience it, in particular instead of automatically following everybody it now gives you a list of who you want to follow and it makes it incredibly explicit that it has not been giving them information without you giving it to them."

Earlier Schmidt used his first ever keynote speech at the world's largest mobile phone trade show to give the industry a call to action, suggesting that telecommunications companies should embrace the new world of smartphones and cloud computing, not fear it.