Google has launched its latest social feature +1 and also agreed to 20 years of audits and fines as part of the settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over privacy policies for its social networking tool in Gmail, Buzz.
Under the settlement with the FTC, Google agreed to permit audits for 20 years, start a privacy program and face $16,000 fines for any future privacy breaches.
FTC executive director Marc Rotenberg said the case is the most significant privacy decision by the commission to date.
Rotenberg said, "For Internet users, it should lead to higher privacy standards and better protection for personal data."
Google has apologised again to users and blamed the privacy breach on insufficient testing of the service.
Google director of privacy, product and engineering Alma Whitten said, "We’d like to apologize again for the mistakes we made with Buzz."
"While today’s announcement thankfully put this incident behind us, we are 100 percent focused on ensuring that our new privacy procedures effectively protect the interests of all our users going forward."
The search engine company also unveiled its new new social networking tool called +1, which is similar to Facebook’s like button.
The new tool allows people personalise search results and advertisements and recommend Web pages to friends and acquaintances.
However, the company has warned that users’ actions could be visible to all.
Google principal search engineer Matt Cutts said, "If you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling your friends and broadcasting this to the world, then of course you don’t have to click the +1 button."
