European watchdogs order Google to rewrite privacy policy or face legal action

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

Privacy watchdogs in the UK, Germany and Italy have told Google to rewrite its privacy policy in Europe or face legal sanctions, 15 months after the search giant unilaterally altered them to unify data collection.

The move follows similar complaints to the US company last month from the equivalent organisations in France and Spain, and ratchets up the attention over its handling of the huge amounts of personal data that it collects from users every day.

Google has already been censured in Europe over its collection of Wi-Fi data, including usernames, passwords and web page viewing while collecting photos for its Street View system. Both European privacy authorities and US legislators have demanded clarification from the company about the data protection implications of its Google Glass head-mounted system, which can take pictures and video without onlookers knowing. It has also been implicated in a data-sharing row over the NSA's Prism program, which has collected information from a number of US companies including Google, Microsoft and Apple.

Now the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK says that the new privacy policy, introduced in March 2012, raises "serious questions" about compliance with the UK Data Protection Act, and has given Google until 20 September to recast it.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/05/google-privacy-policy-legal-action

[iemitsu]

1. Good for the Europeans.

Companies that conspire with governments, to breech their customer's privacy, ought to be boycotted, fined, and ultimately disbanded.

[Iliyah]

2. AND?

It still won't stop spying on EACH other - LOL

For the USA its gonna make it weirder and more secretive.

[JDPriestly]

3. Why is there so much spying on private individuals?

We have no state secrets.

That is what bothers me about this. What in the world do I have or know that is worth the expense of all this spying.

The only purpose in this kind of spying, spying to this extent, is to be able to conduct psy-ops, to be able to control people. This kind of spying is done to figure out how we think, how we feel and who we know and how we are influenced. It tells someone who thinks he is "above" or better than us how to control us through our thoughts and feelings and friendships.

Of what other use is it? I really can't think of anything.

That is why I say that this kind of spying violates ALL of our rights, our most fundamental rights. It is a very grave threat to our humanness itself.