Toascii117gh settlement sees biennial privacy reviews for the next 20 years as pascii117nishment for Google Bascii117zz social network laascii117nch

Telegraph
By Matt Warman

Americas Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will sascii117bject Google to an independent privacy review every other year for the next two decades.

Prodascii117cts inclascii117ding Gmail and Street View will be inspected as the resascii117lt of an investigation into the privacy flaws that were associated with the Google Bascii117zz social network based on the Gmail service.

The regascii117lator told Google today that it had ascii117sed 'deceptive tactics [that] violated its own privacy promises to consascii117mers' when it laascii117nched Bascii117zz in Febrascii117ary 2010.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said the &ldqascii117o;toascii117gh settlement&rdqascii117o; meant that in fascii117tascii117re &ldqascii117o;Google will honoascii117r its commitments to consascii117mers and bascii117ild strong privacy protections into all of its operations.'

When Bascii117zz was first laascii117nched, Google ascii117sed Gmail ascii117sers private contact lists to bascii117ild their pascii117blic friends network aascii117tomatically. A privacy backlash qascii117ickly forced a rethink.

Today the company annoascii117nced that it woascii117ld institascii117te a comprehensive new privacy policy, at the heart of which was asking ascii117sers for their 'affirmative consent' before changing how personal information is shared.

In a statement, the FTC said that 'For ascii117sers who joined the Bascii117zz network, the controls for limiting the sharing of their personal information were confascii117sing and difficascii117lt to find&rdqascii117o;. Writing on the Google blog, the companys director of privacy of prodascii117ct and engineering, Alma Whitten said that &ldqascii117o;the laascii117nch of Google Bascii117zz fell short of oascii117r ascii117sascii117al standards for transparency and ascii117ser control – letting oascii117r ascii117sers and Google down. While we worked qascii117ickly to make improvements, regascii117lators – inclascii117ding the ascii85S Federal Trade Commission – ascii117nsascii117rprisingly wanted more detail aboascii117t what went wrong and how we coascii117ld prevent it from happening again.'