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Google says it will disable the auto-follow function in its new Buzz service to address privacy concerns. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)

Concerns around Google’s recently unveiled Buzz feature are deepening with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada looking into the social-networking tool.

Valerie Lawton, a spokeswoman for the privacy office, said the office is looking into concerns about Buzz.

“We know the public concern about privacy issues related to Google Buzz,” she said. “Our office is looking at the issue.”

Lawton added that the office may comment further on Wednesday.

Google has ignited a hailstorm of criticism with Buzz, which adds real-time communication and media-sharing features found on well loved social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to its Gmail service.

Buzz users can share status updates, news tales, videos and photos, and they can link in feeds from sites such as Twitter and Picasa.

The company unveiled Buzz last week as a feature inside Gmail. Once launched, Buzz automatically searched the user’s most emailed contacts and added them as followers, thereby inadvertently exposing potentially sensitive communications.

One user blogged about how Buzz automatically added her abusive ex-boyfriend as a follower and exposed her communications with a current partner to him. Other bloggers commented that repressive governments in countries such as China or Iran could use Buzz to expose dissidents.

In the United States, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said it plans to lodge a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission because Buzz is forcing Gmail users into a social networking service they don’t necessarily want.

Over the weekend, Google promised to implement changes, including a disabling of the auto-follow function in favour of suggested followers, to give users more control over their privacy. Buzz product manager Todd Jackson admitted the new service hadn’t been properly tested and apologized for the snafu.

“We’ve been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild,” he told BBC News.

Google Canada spokesperson Wendy Rozeluk said the company has been talking with federal and provincial privacy officials, but would not comment on what was discussed.

The company is moving to implement changes as quickly as possible, with some of them taking effect this week, she added.

“We’ll be making some significant product improvements over the next few days based on user feedback,” she said. “The user always comes first.”

Social networking websites have kept Canada’s Privacy Commissioner busy recently.

Last summer, the commissioner’s office forced Facebook to make sweeping changes to its policies after finding that the site violated Canadians’ privacy rights. Last month, assistant privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham said she was again looking into Facebook after receiving complaints that the website has not followed through on its promises.

Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart also last week announced upcoming consultations relating to privacy and cloud computing, another service of which Google is a huge proponent. Stoddart said that by storing an increasing number of documents and files on servers hosted by third parties, Canadians are potentially making themselves vulnerable to privacy violations.

People carry an injured person in Port-au-Prince after a devastating earthquake rocked Haiti on Jan. 12. (Radio Tele Ginen/Associated Press)

Hurt from Haiti’s catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake may be twice the value of the country’s annual economy, Latin America’s main development bank said Tuesday.

A report by three Inter-American Development Bank economists found last month’s earthquake to be more devastating than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was for Indonesia, and five times deadlier than the 1972 earthquake that hit Nicaragua’s capital.

“It is the most destructive [natural disaster] a country has ever experienced when measured in terms of the number of people killed as a share of the country’s population,” killing one in every 50 Haitians, the report said.

Economists Eduardo Cavallo, Andrew Powell and Oscar Becerra estimated the magnitude-seven quake wrought hurt worth between $8.1 billion and $13.9 billion.

Haiti produced only $7 billion worth of goods and services in 2008, according to the World Bank.

“This is just an assessment of hurt; it gives no indication of the amount of money to get the country back as if nothing had happened,” Cavallo told The Associated Press by phone. He said an ongoing assessment will be needed to determine the total amount Haiti needs to rebuild.

The authors used statistical models based on data compiled from about 2,000 natural disasters since 1970, taking into account estimated death tolls, levels of economic development and other factors — and they caution the study is preliminary.

They came up with a wide range of potential estimates, including one as low as $4.1 billion. But because there are few precedents for a disaster this size — it killed more than 200,000 people and struck directly at the heart of the country’s political and economic centre — Cavallo said they believe the final figure will be closer to their highest estimates.

Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard looks up ice after throwing a rock in the Olympic opener against Switzerland on Tuesday. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)

Cheryl Bernard led Canada to a 5-4 win over Switzerland in the women’s curling opener at the Vancouver Olympic Centre on Tuesday.

Bernard trailed Swiss skip Mirjam Ott 2-1 at the fifth-end break. But the 43-year-ancient from Calgary scored a deuce in the sixth end to take the lead.

Ott played a silent tap-back to tie it with a single in the seventh end, but Bernard regained the lead in the eighth.

Canada held the Swiss to one in the ninth, and then drew to the button for the 5-4 win in the 10th.

In other women’s curling round-robin action on Tuesday:

• Sweden edged Denmark 6-5.
• Japan beat the United States 9-7.
• Germany walked over Russia 9-4.

CBC curling analysts Mike Harris and Joan McCusker both say the final will likely feature China’s Bingyu Wang, the reigning world champion, against Sweden’s Anette Norberg, the defending gold medallist.

Ott took silver at the last two Winter Games, and was a formidable test for Bernard in the opener.

Canada will play Japan in further preliminary action at the Vancouver Olympic Centre on Wednesday morning.

Kevin Martin narrowly squeezed past Norway with a 7-6 win in extra ends earlier on Tuesday. Canada’s men’s squad is back in action on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. PT, taking on Germany.