UPDATED 10:10 EDT / FEBRUARY 29 2012

Google Firm On New Privacy Policy Amid EU & EC Hindrances

The Federal Trade Commission basically told the public that they have no choice with regards to Google’s new privacy policy, which will take effect tomorrow, March 1, 2012.  Google said that they are being transparent with their new privacy policy, and that they want their products to be more streamlined and simpler for their subscribers.  And if users do not agree with it, they shouldn’t use Google products and services.

But a French agency, the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties (CNIL), thinks that the new privacy policy from Google violates the European Union law.

“Rather than promoting transparency, the terms of the new policy and the fact that Google claims publicly that it will combine data across services raises fears about Google’s actual practices,” the letter from CNIL stated. “Our preliminary investigation shows that it is extremely difficult to know exactly which data is combined between which services for which purposes, even for trained privacy professionals.”


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Though Google’s plan is being blocked by the European Commission and the European Union, which hopes to delay the search giant from adopting the new privacy policy, Google is not being swayed.

“We are confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles,” Peter Fleischer, Google’s chief privacy counsel, wrote in a letter to the French privacy agency.

“Like all companies, we have struggled with the conundrum of how to pursue both of the CNIL’s recommendations: How to ‘streamline and simplify’ our privacy policies, while at the same time providing ‘comprehensive information’ to our users.”

Fleischer also added that, “To pause now would cause a great deal of confusion for users.  We have given well over a month for our users to read and understand the privacy policy changes, and have provided extensive information on these changes for our users.”

It’s the last development in a string of obstacles Google’s faced regarding its latest privacy policy changes, which must answer to an international council thanks to Google’s worldwide reach.  Google products span a variety of services and platforms, including mobile.  Under constant scrutiny, Google’s privacy policies are far-reaching in every sense of the word.



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