Today, Google have made the very interesting (but arguably provocative) move of completely rejecting the French data protection regulator's request to put a hold on the implementation of proposed changes to its privacy policies.
In doing so it has become the subject of a Europe-wide investigation.
What has changed?
Up until today, the information collected by Google on each of its platforms, such as Gmail and YouTube, was kept separate. However, Google has now merged its privacy policies into one and the impact of this is that private and personal data collected by one Google service, can be shared with other Google platforms.
The impact
Google have justified this change on the basis that this consolidated privacy policy and sharing of information between Google platforms, will enable them to tailor search results better. However, as one would expect, this change has attracted much interest from a privacy perspective and questions have been raised as to whether or not this is lawful.
The French regulator in particular is reported to have indicated that they have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing and its compliance with European data protection legislation. Part of this concern is derived from the fact users cannot, it seems, easily opt out of the terms of this new consolidated privacy policy unless they actually stop using all Google sites and services.
As website operators scramble to achieve compliance with the new laws relating to the use of cookies, they will also no doubt be waiting with great anticipation to hear the results of the investigation being conducted by the French regulator.
Aisling Duffy, an IT lawyer at Shoosmiths has co-authored a related article on ‘Cookies Compliance: The Practicalities’ taking an in-depth look at new EU legislation coming in to force on 26 May 2012. |