Legal noise over Google Buzz

The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging Google Buzz is a significant breach of consumers' expectations of privacy, reports San Jose Mercury News.

According to the press release on the Electronic Privacy Information's Web site, it wants the FTC to require Google to make its Buzz service fully opt-in, to stop using Gmail users' private address book contacts to compile social networking lists, and to give Google users meaningful control over their personal data.

The complaint was filed after Todd Jackson, Google's product manager for Buzz, blogged "there's been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge." Jackson pledged to make changes to Buzz to correct this issue.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook over changes that the social networking site made to its privacy settings in 2009, states Computerworld.

The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the modifications have in reality reduced privacy protections for Facebook users rather than increasing them, as the company had claimed it would.

"Changes to the privacy settings that Facebook implemented and represented to increase user privacy had the outright opposite effect of resulting in the public dissemination of personal information that was originally private," the lawsuit claims.

EBay will pay roughly $316 500 to Louis Vuitton Malletier for legal costs and damages and stop using Internet search terms the luxury goods maker protested, following a ruling Paris District Court, says Claims Journal.

The online auction site was found liable for harming the reputation of Louis Vuitton trademarks, the company name and domain name held by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. EBay spokeswoman Alina Piacentino said the company will appeal the decision.

The court, which called eBay's actions 'parasitic', ordered the company to stop using the keywords. The court says the practice harmed Louis Vuitton's brand.