Google alters Buzz settings

Google on Saturday again revised privacy settings of Buzz, the new social network it has piggybacked onto tens of millions of existing Gmail accounts.

It was the second major revision in 72 hours. The search giant scrambled all week to quell backlash from Gmail users upset about how Google has introduced the service and how Buzz taps into their contacts list. Jeff Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said that Google's Buzz service represented a worrying new trend in marketing, given the extent of the information it already holds about its users. "Buzz is the latest example of a global digital data collection 'arms race' - where the latest trend is for marketers to grab hold and monetise a user's social graph," he said.