Google Buzz Opens Doors To Phishing Scams

It’s a new day, so there must be a new revelation about another way in which Google Buzz is an affront to the concept of personal privacy, right? But the latest complaint about the Internet giant’s unasked-for answer to Facebook and Twitter goes far beyond making your private contacts public or adding potential personal safety risks to your “followers” list. It looks like the phishers and botnet scammers have already begun taking advantage of the new feature.

Unseemly Internet crooks have begun introducing corrupted search result links into the cybersphere. When clicked on, your PC could become part of a Borg-like botnet, dealing out spam and possibly giving up your personal data in the process.

Security experts say that fake pharmaceuticals spammers are already taking advantage of Google Buzz with the ultimate intent of accessing the data available in the victim’s Gmail account.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is currently preparing a formal complaint to the FCC regarding Google Buzz, the same group that led a similar campaign against Facebook’s questionable privacies policies.

“Both companies have broken promises to their users about how personal information would be used,” says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “They did so in ways that were misleading, unfair, and deceptive. These are serious concerns for any user of these services.”

Google Buzz fuels rising privacy, security concerns [USA Today]

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