Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address users’ concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

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This mandatory announcement was sent to all Gmail users in the United States as part of a legal settlement and was authorized by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043

“Credit reports contain a wealth of background information about consumers, including social security numbers, summaries of bank and credit card accounts, employment history, current and previous addresses and other details that are extremely valuable to con artists,” Corbett said. “Falling for Internet job schemes can be a double threat – leaving victims unemployed and struggling to untangle a web of financial problems caused by identity theft.”

Corbett noted that con artists are using Internet postings and email messages to circulate ads for high paying part-time work as personal assistants, check processors and a variety of other work-at-home positions. The exact wording of these scams varies greatly, but all of them have common features;
- They offer “easy money” for little work.
- Consumers work from home, rather than an office.
- It is difficult to meet your “employer” in-person, often because they travel frequently or are based overseas.
- Consumers need to respond quickly.

“It is important for all Pennsylvania residents to be watchful for online job scams, especially students looking for summer work, graduates hoping for their first job or older residents searching for part-time work or new careers,” Corbett said. “Consumers should always be wary of offers that seem ‘too good to be true,’ especially in situations where you are being asked to provide detailed personal information to people you do not know.”

Corbett said that in addition to asking consumers to email copies of their credit report – a practice which leaves that personal information vulnerable to interception or theft – some con artists are including bogus website links in their email messages, directing victims to look-alike websites that can be used to electronically steal a consumer’s personal information.

“Legitimate businesses that require credit reports as part of an employee screening process can obtain that information directly from the major credit bureaus,” Corbett said. “There is no need for a business to ask consumers to obtain their own credit report and then forward that information by email.”

Additionally, Corbett said that consumers should avoid any type of online offer that involves a request to wire-transfer money to someone you do not know.

“An important element in many job-related scams is that consumers are given checks and are asked to wire-transfer money to other people, believing that they are paying bills for the ‘employers’, processing checks, handling payments for an overseas business or dealing with other financial matters,” Corbett said. “In reality, victims are depositing counterfeit checks or money orders into their bank accounts and then wire-transferring that money to scam artists overseas.”

In all of these cases, Corbett said the bogus checks will eventually be returned and banks will require consumers to repay any funds they withdrew.

Suspected scams can be reported to the national Internet Crime Complaint Center, at www.ic3.gov.

Users receiving the fraudulent email messages are encouraged to send the email message and the website URL to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.

US-CERT encourages users to do the following to help mitigate the risks:

* Do not follow unsolicited web links received in email messages.
* Refer to the Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams (pdf) document for more information on avoiding email scams.
* Refer to the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks (pdf) document for more information on social engineering attacks.
* Review the How to Report and Identify Phishing, E-mail Scams and Bogus IRS Web Sites document on the IRS website.

Headline: The President gets to keep his Blackberry, but the White House can’t keep their Microsoft server running for email.

Both incoming and outgoing email were not working. They resorted to making photocopies of the executive orders that President Obama signed.

Mr. Gibbs said, “Our apologies if you’ve e-mailed any of us in the last two-and-a-half hours. Our e-mail system is not working so well. So our apologies on that, and we’ll endeavor to get you information from earlier in the day, hopefully in a little bit more of a timely manner, if we can get the e-mail to work.”

When questioned further he replied, “We don’t comment on security issues.”