Google Pays $8.5M to Settle Buzz Case

(AFP) - Google has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a privacy lawsuit over a Buzz social networking tool added to free email service Gmail in February, according to court documents revealed Friday.

Legal paperwork made available online detailed the proposed settlement, which awaits approval by the federal court judge in San Francisco presiding over the case.

Lawyers that filed the class-action suit staked out 30 percent of the settlement money and the seven named plaintiffs were to get no more than $2,500 each, according to court documents.

The rest of the money, which Google is to deposit in a fund, was earmarked for organizations devoted to internet privacy policy or education.

The settlement also called on the California-based internet giant to do more to educate people about privacy at Buzz.

Facing a slew of privacy complaints in the wake of the Buzz launch, Google has made changes to the new social networking tool.

"Google has made changes to the Google Buzz user interface that clarify Google Buzz's operation and users' options regarding Google Buzz," the settlement maintained.

Among the concerns aired in technology blogs and elsewhere was that Google Buzz was taking a user's Gmail contacts and automatically adding them to their public Buzz social network.

Gmail users now have to create a Google Buzz public profile and can view, edit or hide lists of people in their online circles.

Google also gave users the ability to block anyone following their account.

Buzz allows Gmail users to get updates about what friends are doing online and offers ways to share video, photos and other digitized snippets.

Buzz has been described by some technology analysts as a direct challenge by Google to social networking stars Facebook and Twitter.

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