The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada –- the same office that prompted major changes at Facebook –- is taking a closer look at the privacy implications of Google Buzz. According to CBC News, the office may issue further comment on Wednesday.
With Facebook, the privacy commissioner was concerned about the social networking storing user information after users deleted their accounts, eventually prompting a number of policy and feature changes at the site that have been implemented worldwide.
With Buzz, the office is presumably looking at some of the service’s more controversial aspects -- namely, the way in which it automatically finds users to follow based on your e-mail correspondence, a practice that has drawn criticism (and quick feature adjustments by Google) since Buzz debuted in user’s Gmail inboxes last week.
Stateside, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint with the FTC asking it to investigate Buzz, writing that the product "violated user expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google's privacy policy, and may have violated federal wiretap laws."
It’s safe to say that this story is far from over. In the meantime, we’re continuing to experiment with Buzz -- you can follow us here.