Officials of the European Union have asked Google not to go ahead with its plans to make user information visible across all of its services, at least until all the implications on the privacy of the users can be analyzed. However, Google has refused to yield to this request by the European Union.
The Financial Times reported today that the chairman of the Article 29 Working Group of EU advisers on data protection issues, Jacob Kohnstamm, in a letter to Larry Page, the CEO of Google said that his team would like to further probe the repercussions of the new privacy policy on the citizens of the EU in a coordinated procedure. The letter also said that CNIL, the French data protection watchdog, has been requested by the Working Group to lead the investigation.
Interestingly, Google has refused to budge with its plans to implement the policy modification announced earlier last week. The new privacy policy according to Google will be in effect from March 1. Peter Fleisher, the Privacy Counsel for Google in a letter to Kohnstamm said that if CNIL requests a meeting in this regard, the company would be happy to discuss the issue further. He added saying that Google had extensively briefed the protection authorities all across the EU well in advance of 24th January 2012 when the notification was sent to users.
Throughout this period, none of the EU regulators suggested any amendments and never hinted that there would be any such concern in the future. He said that since the briefing was complete, over 350 million Google account holders were sent the notification regarding the new privacy policy. Google has also provided highly visible notices to all non-authenticated users.
Fleisher noted that the new privacy policy changes will not in any way affect the existing privacy settings of the users. The users will not be asked to submit any additional or new data either. The primary objective of the change is to allow Google to utilize the data which is already stored on its servers to provide better quality of service. In essence, the move streamlines more than 60 various privacy policies of Google which are currently in affect into one unified policy.
Lawmakers in the United States have already taken up the Google’s privacy policy change with some of them urging the company to allow the user to opt out of the change.
February 13, 2012 at 5:33 pm
If Google had nothing to hide, it would satisfy the inquiries and cautions prior to going ahead with this privacy policy. It would do it for its users (that it so loudly claims to be defending) and to maintain their trust.
But Google’s arrogance rides over the tops of users’ heads. It should postpone, but it won’t.
I’ve signed a petition to stop this and others can join in and make privacy issues clear and safe for everyone. Sign the petition!
http://www.change.org/petitions/google-ask-fairly-about-our-privacy