Google has agreed to pay a hefty sum to make a class action lawsuit concerning Google Buzz disappear — $8.5 million, to be exact.The lawsuit dates back to February, when lawyers filed a class action complaint against Google on behalf of Eva Hibnick, a 24-year-old Florida resident and Harvard Law School student. The complaint alleged that Buzz violated several communication privacy laws related to protecting user privacy.
Google Buzz caught a lot of flak for its auto-follow and opt-in features, so much so that Google quickly made privacy fixes after launch. They weren’t enough to quell the criticism though, so Google launched a privacy reset for Buzz, giving users a new opportunity to adjust their privacy settings.
According to the settlement, these changes addressed the key privacy issues surrounding Buzz. “Google has made changes to the Google Buzz user interface that clarify Google Buzz’s operation and users’ options regarding Google Buzz,” it stated.
That’s not all, though. While the settlement acknowledges that Google Buzz’s privacy issues have been resolved, it says the company must do more to educate users about Google Buzz’s potential impact on privacy. The $8.5 million from the settelement will go towards lawyer fees (30%) and the seven named plaintiffs (up to $2,500 each), with the remainder going towards organizations and non-profits focused on Internet privacy.
Now that the privacy issues have been settled, Google can focus on a more important problem: actually producing a winner in the social media space.
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