In a class action lawsuit recently filed against Google in federal court in San Jose, California, Barry Feldman of New York has alleged that Google’s Buzz social- networking service has breached the privacy rights of Gmail users.

The February-introduced Buzz service by Google pulled the users’ contacts from its Gmail e-mail accounts, and automatically displayed these contacts to other users. As such, the service drew hordes of complaints from anxious Gmail users, over privacy concerns of such a move.

The growing number of Buzz-related complaints forced Google to make “several waves of modifications to the program,” which also include the posting of a new video that instructs users about the safe management of their Buzz accounts.

However, the lawsuit claims that that the changes introduced “do not go far enough” – more so as the slip-up has “already caused damage because the Buzz program disclosed private user information the moment Google launched the service.”

Citing personal example, Feldman said that, as a result of Google’s automatic activation of Buzz, his most-used e-mail contacts and information stored in his Google profile was automatically transmitted to other Gmail users.

The lawsuit filed by Feldman comes almost a month after ten Congress members wrote a letter to federal antitrust authorities, seeking a detailed investigation into whether users’ privacy has been violated by Google’s Buzz program.