Windows 7 - Google Scolded By Privacy Officials.

Buzz, the company's social networking arm for Gmail, continues to elicit criticism.

Data protection officials from ten countries on Tuesday chastised Google CEO Eric Schmidt in an open letter for his company's handling of the launch of Google Buzz and asked the company to commit to building greater privacy protections into its future services.

The letter was sent by Jennifer Stoddart, privacy commissioner of Canada, and signed by her counterparts in France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom.

"[W]e are increasingly concerned that, too often, the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications," the letter states. "We were disturbed by your recent rollout of the Google Buzz social networking application, which betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws."

The letter also notes that Google has a history of privacy problems with its services, particularly Google Maps Street View, which has hit roadblocks -- both literally and figuratively -- as it has been deployed around the world.

I stay away from Google, and its services, as much as I can.
No Chrome, no Gmail, etc. Very occasionally I use Google search.

Ditto. I avoid Google.

Me too. Google is too invasive.

If someone could refer me to a webmail service that is equal to GMail, I would get rid of my account there, but I don't think that such a thing exists.

Windows Live Mail / hotmail. Not perfect either though

If someone could refer me to a webmail service that is equal to GMail, I would get rid of my account there, but I don't think that such a thing exists.