Google sued in Israeli court over Buzz


16 Feb 2010

There has been a lot of controversy over Google’s new Buzz social-networking service and its privacy implications, and the first legal case to emerge from this has taken place in Israel.

Although Google has since changed the privacy settings and made it easier to unsubscribe from Buzz, Amal Jaraisy of Israel has already gone to court against the company seeking NIS (Israeli shekel) 5.5 billion class action on the grounds of invasion of privacy.

As reported on Haaretz.com, she said that the class-action motion was on behalf of all Gmail users who “woke up one morning and found that the details of the people with whom they have open or covert contact are exposed to the entire world”.

Jaraisy said the Gmail service to which people have signed up offers the assumption of privacy which Buzz had broken when it published names of Gmail contacts without the users’ consent or knowledge.

By Marie Boran

Photo: A woman has filed a lawsuit over Google Buzz regarding invasion of privacy