Google Buzz – which takes one part Facebook, one part Twitter, one part YouTube and one part Flickr as part of a social networking platform linked to Gmail – continues to make waves. We show some flaws, report on the blow-up with Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, and offer up a fix.

With Google Buzz people post personal information, photos and other content to share with friends, but the new application has raised serious concerns, coming under scrutiny for lacking some fundamental privacy and security. Some of the decisions revealed remarkably poor judgment.

Here are three:

Automatic contact import and reveal.  Google Buzz automatically imports contacts and shows them as friends. The auto-follow feature automatically makes Buzz users friends with the people they communicate with most through Gmail – it starts following those people, and makes that list public, meaning strangers get a look at who Buzz users are in contact with.

Photo reveal without uploading/consent. Google Buzz grabs photos without a user uploading them. This one may be a bug, but one user found that Buzz "appears to grab photos off my Android phone that I've never uploaded." According to the user, when she enabled Google Buzz it automatically started using a photo on her personal Buzz page that she'd taken with her Google Android smartphone and never uploaded to Google Buzz.

Pinpoint and broadcast of location.  Google Buzz can pinpoint and broadcast your exact location. When users visit the mobile app via Android, they are asked whether they want to share their location or not. That location can also be saved and remembered as a preference if users want. Essentially, the service reveals users' location every time they make a post. This may be scarier than it sounds – it is already an option on Gmail.

Privacy commissioner puts a buzz in Google’s ear

Canada's Privacy Commissioner has given Google an earful for not consulting with her before launching its Buzz social-networking service.

“We have seen a storm of protest and outrage over alleged privacy violations and my office also has questions about how Google Buzz has met the requirements of privacy law in Canada," Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a statement.

"My office has a variety of resources available to help companies build privacy into their products and services. When companies consult with us at the development stage, they can avoid the problems we've seen in recent days."

Google offers a Buzz fix to deal with privacy

Google has altered one of the criticized features in the product designed to go up against Facebook and Twitter. Instead of automatically connecting people to each other, Buzz will merely suggest to a new user a group of people they may want to follow or be followed by. You won't be set up to follow anyone until you have reviewed the suggestions and clicked "Follow selected people and start using Buzz."