SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc hassettled a lawsuit accusing it of privacy violations inconnection with its Buzz social networking service, accordingto a court document filed on Friday.

The settlement filing comes on the same day Google said itwould simplify and update its privacy policies, AssociateGeneral Counsel Mike Yang said on the company's website.http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html.

Yang was not available for comment.

In addition, Google disclosed on its website that TexasAttorney General Greg Abbott was conducting an antitrust reviewof the company. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/09/texas-inquires-on-our-app...

Google spokesman Brian Richardson said the company wassatisfied with the agreement to end the Buzz litigation.

"We have always been committed to offering userstransparency and choice in Buzz and all our products, and willcontinue to work together with users to provide the best userexperience possible," he said.

Launched in February, Buzz initially used an individual'semail contacts from Google Gmail to build a social network ofBuzz contacts that the rest of the world could see, which ledto privacy concerns. Google then changed the settings so thatcontacts were kept private by default.

To settle the lawsuit brought by a Gmail user, Google willset aside $8.5 million for attorneys fees and donations toorganizations focused on Internet privacy, according to thecourt filing.

In addition, "the settlement requires that Google undertakewider public education about the privacy aspects of Buzz," thefiling showed.

Gary Mason, an attorney for the plaintiffs, was notavailable for comment.

Yang said on Google's website that the company was deleting separate privacy statements for 12 different Googleproducts and services, which would now be covered by Google'soverall policy. He said the updates would take effect onOctober 3.

"To be clear, we aren't changing any of our privacypractices," Yang said. "We want to make our policies moretransparent and understandable."

The case in San Francisco federal court is In Re GoogleBuzz User Privacy Litigation, 10-cv-00672. (Reporting by Dan Levine, editing by Matthew Lewis)