Washington - An online privacy advocacy group on Tuesday filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to compel Google (NASD: GOOG) to bolster privacy protections for Buzz, the new social media features on its Gmail service.

"This complaint concerns an attempt by Google, Inc., the provider of a widely used email service, to convert the private, personal information of Gmail subscribers into public information for the company’s social network service Google Buzz," reads the complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

"This change in business practices and service terms violated user privacy expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted Google’s own privacy policy, and may have also violated federal wiretap laws."

Google has already made several changes to the service, following many complaints on privacy issues.

However, EPIC deemed these changes — such as moving from an "auto-follow" to "auto-suggest" model for adding a user’s Gmail contacts to Buzz — to be unsatisfactory.

EPIC believes that Google should make Buzz completely opt-in, and that Buzz should not have access to a user’s Gmail contacts.

Related Links:

http://epic.org/privacy/ftc/googlebuzz/Google_Buzz_Press_Release.pdf

(PDF)