Lawmakers Ask For FTC Investigation of Google Buzz 131
angry tapir writes "Eleven US lawmakers have asked the FTC to investigate Google's launch of its Buzz social-networking product for breaches of consumer privacy. The representatives — six Democrats and five Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee — noted in their letter that Google's roll-out of Buzz exposed private information of users to Google's Gmail service to outsiders. In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact list in Gmail with a person who has a 'sexually charged' username, the lawmakers said in the letter."
There. Fixed that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
"In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact list in Gmail with a person who has a 'sexually charged' username, the lawmakers said in the letter."
In one case, the parents of a 9 year old girl weren't paying attention, like they should have been, while their daughter surfed the web and they were upset at their lack of parenting skills and decided it imperative that they defer to the Federal Government to help them solve this problem.
Won't somebody think of the children (Score:4, Insightful)
Please! Won't somebody think of the children surfing the internet without adult supervision! Gmail only added people that you had repeated email correspondence with, which means that the 9 year old girl was perfectly capable of picking up sexual predators on her own. Also? Putting any kind of responsibility on the parents is clearly across the line.
Adaptation (Score:4, Insightful)
If you suddenly discovered a way of phrasing your requests to your boss that always got you what you wanted, wouldn't you always try to phrase things that way?
We are the bosses of the politicians, so when the politicians realize that they can get whatever they want if they wave the for-the-children flag, I think we can easily understand why they do it so often.
Oh wow (Score:1, Insightful)
You know, one time I accidentally almost made a left turn when I should have made a right turn, maybe we can investigate traffic lights next.
-- "UberCharged"
Re:Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Why Does a 9 Year Old Need an E-Mail Address? (Score:3, Insightful)
The cellphone thing I get. "I'm lost, bad man following me," understood. But an e-mail address? Doesn't fly. It's not like e-mail is some great technological novelty, the quicker a child is exposed to it, works with it, develops skills with it, the better s/he will do later on in school. Use of e-mail is monkey-hammer dead simple, is "mastered" in twenty minutes. And the only "social networks" the kid needs to be on is the one that ensures she gets a good seat on the school bus or cafeteria table.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Old "parenting skills": 1) Place child in front of TV. 2) Insert Disney DVD 3) Press "Play". 4) Return in 90 minutes. 5) Repeat.
New "parenting skills": 1) Place child in front of computer. 2) Turn on computer. 3) Before going to bed, put the child in bed.
It is said that our children are the future . . . so let's worry about them then, and not now.
Re:that's why I have a hotmail account... (Score:4, Insightful)
friends (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say I have some friends who despite my best efforts still do drugs. They have destructive tendencies. I try and help them out, steer them away from bad choices and towards good choices.
Do I really want someone who've I've emailed about a job to suddenly know that I am associated with people who have active drug problems?
Better yet, why should anyone else have access to the list of people I communicating with? People seem to be ignoring the privacy issue here and focusing on the 9 year old and the Google can do no harm bullshit.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
"In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact list in Gmail with a person who has a 'sexually charged' username, the lawmakers said in the letter."
In one case, the parents of a 9 year old girl weren't paying attention, like they should have been, while their daughter surfed the web and they were upset at their lack of parenting skills and decided it imperative that they defer to the Federal Government to help them solve this problem.
Maybe, just maybe, mommy and daddy did their work and considered Gmail safe. And maybe, just maybe, Google decided it was OK to opt everyone into Buzz without letting anyone know about it.
People in /. love to blame this kind of stuff on parents, but fact is, Google pushed Buzz into any gmail user without informing properly. It just suddenly showed up there. You would have to do daily audits of every single action your child takes in the internet if you wanted to catch this, and even then it would had been easy to miss the change.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Older "parenting skills": 1) Place child in yard. 2) Go back to whatever you were doing 3) Whup the kids if they get back after dinnertime.
Here's the thing... a lot of parents just don't understand that letting their kids use the internet unsupervised puts them in potential contact with EVERY person who also has internet access. Period.
This requires fundamental differences in how child's play is supervised, if you wish to avoid the headaches unfettered internet access creates. Because of the limited (and/or different) danger posed by other recreational activities, parents need to understand that they need to be much, much more participatory in internet activity with their kids than with other things their kids do.
Unfortunately, many parents either don't realize this, don't make the time for it, or don't care.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, mommy and daddy did their work and considered Gmail safe.
Maybe, just maybe, but most likely not. A 9 year old should not be using the internet unsupervised, period.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:2, Insightful)