Thaindian News

London, Feb 13 (ANI): It has emerged that Google’s messaging tool ‘Buzz’ has a serious privacy flaw, in which it could allow anyone to see who they have been emailing.

Google claims that Buzz allows users to “share updates, photos, videos, and more”, but users have discovered that unless privacy settings are changed, it publicly shares details of users’ contacts.

The application asks a user to create a profile and upload a photograph when creating a new account, and then it automatically builds a buddy list based on names in the user’s Googlemail account.

The list is then, by default, made public on the user’s profile.

“In my profession, where anonymous sourcing is a crucial tool, the implications of this flaw are terrifying,” Sky News quoted Buzz user and journalist Nicholas Carson, a Business Insider writer, as saying.

“Google should just ask users, ‘Do you want to follow these people we’ve suggested you follow, based on the fact you email and chat with them? This will expose to the public who you email and chat with most’,” he said.

In response, Google moved to tweak the sign-up process and now claims the opt-out option for a public list is clearer.

“We think that showing followers publicly by default makes Buzz more useful because it helps people expand their networks,” they said in a statement.

“In response to feedback, we’ve made the option to hide these lists more prominent in the set up process,” the statement read.

“We continue to believe these chances to opt-out do not force the user to make a real choice about this setting,” Carson responded to the statement.

“Google could and should simply make this feature ‘opt-in’ so that people know what they’re doing,” he added. (ANI)