Google Buzz Poses a Major Privacy Risk for Kids

She says she has counseled her children on how to stay safe online, including not sharing personal information. But the other day she logged into her Google Buzz account only to discover that her 9-year-old daughter had posted a conversation with friends to Buzz without understanding the post was public.

“I saw it because Buzz conveniently made me a follower of hers. I pride myself on staying ahead of my kids, but this time, my kid got ahead of me," Li wrote. “Fortunately, this was her only Buzz posting. But what was most disturbing was looking at her friends conversations and realizing that some of them were chatting with complete strangers, and in some cases, sharing personal information like e-mails. Absolutely terrifying as these are 4th graders who have no clue.

The blog post's most frightening line: Imagine parents (and kids) checking out their Buzz accounts to find that 'iorgyinbathrooms' is following them, which is exactly what happened with my child's account."

Li, founder of Altimeter Group, turned off Google Buzz, alerted the parents of her daughter's friends and went into full analyst mode.

First, I discovered that buried in Googles terms of service somewhere is that children under the age of 13 are not allowed to have Gmail accounts. But unlike Facebook, which requires that people enter their birthdates when setting up accounts, Google makes no such attempt to educate people signing up for Gmail that such a provision is in place. As a result, while Google is absolved of responsibility because of the TOS, it could and should do a better job of complying with the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Li said she also worries that even if parents disable Buzz, kids can easily turn it back on. And they may not understand how to manage the settings to stay safe. So she is asking for Google to add parental controls to Gmail. And she is asking parents to take action.