Consumer Watchdog files Google+ complaint with FTC

Google, through its plan to link Gmail addresses to its Google+ social network, is violating a privacy agreement the company made with the Federal Trade Commission, a longtime critic of the company's privacy practices said in a complaint to the agency.

Google+ also has a "flagrant and fundamental privacy design flaw" because it allows any user to add other users to his circles without their permission, Consumer Watchdog said in the complaint. "A user can be forced to be publicly associated with someone with whom they do not wish to be associated," wrote John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director. Compounding the problem is Google's plan, announced in early January 2014, to merge Google+ and Gmail contact lists, Consumer Watchdog said. The change will allow a Gmail user to send an unsolicited e-mail message to another user without knowing the second person's Gmail address, by adding the intended recipient to his Google+ circles. That merger of Google+ and Gmail accounts violates a March 2011 privacy settlement between Google and the FTC over Google Buzz, the company's failed first social networking experiment, Consumer Watchdog alleged.