For its early February-introduced Buzz social networking tool, Google Monday commenced the roll out of a privacy upgrade, amid concerns about the extent of personal information that Buzz made public.

According to the information forwarded by Google, the new upgrade - which will target early adopters of the service and will include a settings confirmation screen for all users - will be rolled out in a gradual manner.

While the Buzz social networking product added a “news feed” feature to Gmail, it was at the receiving end of criticism from most users, over privacy concerns. As such, within days of its debut, Google tweaked Buzz and made it clearer about the way the users’ information was shared, as well as simplified the process for blocking or following other users.

A Google blog post about the recently-announced Buzz upgrade said: “Offering everyone who uses our products transparency and control is very important to us, so if you started using Google Buzz before we changed the start-up experience, you'll see a confirmation page the next time you click into the Buzz tab.”

Going by a further elaboration in a TechNewsWorld report, which cited information from Google spokesperson Victoria Katsarou, with the Buzz upgrade in place on Monday, any user with a Buzz account dated mid-February will be asked to confirm “key Buzz settings.”