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Google is spending US$8.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed over the rollout of its Google Buzz social-networking service.

The proposed settlement was filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, California. The money will cover attorney fees and also be used to fund groups focused on Internet privacy, according to court filings.

If approved by a judge, the settlement will close a chapter on the ill-fated February launch of Google's alternative to Facebook. Buzz worried users because it made the names of users' Gmail contacts public, often without their knowledge. Google quickly addressed the issue but was soon hit with class-action lawsuits, which were eventually consolidated into this case.

Google's encrypted search engine, launched in May, has moved to a new Web address that isn't as convenient as its original one but that gives organizations the option to block the site for their users without locking them out of other Google services.

Originally offered at google.com, the encrypted search engine has been relocated to encrypted.google.com, a move prompted primarily by the requirement of schools and universities to block encrypted search engines for their students.

Educational institutions often ban encrypted search engines because students can use them to bypass the Web content filters of their schools and universities.

However, blocking google.com also interferes with other encrypted Google products, like the hosted Apps communication and collaboration suite, which many educational institutions offer for their staff and students.

Google is changing the way it handles the unique identifier that accompanies each installation of its Chrome browser.

As noticed by H-Online, a Google white paper (pdf) says the company will now delete the unique ID after the browser updates itself for the first time.