GOOGLE AND PRIVACY: 6 EU COUNTRIES TAKE ACTION
Apr 2, 11:41 AM EDT
Apr 2, 11:41 AM EDT
BY LORI HINNANT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS (AP) -- Google's new privacy policy is under legal
attack from regulators in its largest European markets, who want the company to
overhaul practices they say let it create a data goldmine at the expense of
unwitting users.
Led by the French, organizations in Britain, the
Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy agreed Tuesday on the joint action, with
the ultimate possibility of imposing fines or restrictions on operations across
the entire 27-country European Union.
Last year the company merged 60 separate privacy policies
from around the world into one universal procedure. The European organizations
complain that the new policy doesn't allow users to figure out which
information is kept, how it is combined by Google services, or how long the
company retains it.
The fines' financial impact on Google would be limited -
French privacy watchdog CNIL has the right to fine the company up to 300,000
euros ($385,000), approximately the amount it earns in three minutes, based on
its projected revenue of $61 billion this year. Britain can fine up to 500,000
pounds, but rarely does.
But successful legal action would hurt Google's image and
could block its ability to collect such data until it addresses the regulators'
concerns.
Google dominates the European market for Internet
searches. According to one survey, as much as 95 percent of searches in Europe
are carried out through Google, compared with about 65 percent in the United
States. European regulators have demanded specifics for anyone using Google on
what's being collected and a simpler presentation.
Tensions between privacy and the swiftly evolving ability
of companies to spin online usage data into vast profits are ramping up,
especially in Europe, where privacy laws tend to be strong and nearly every
country has a regulatory body. But Internet users have consistently shown a
willingness to give up privacy in exchange for convenience and new online
services that Google and other tech companies offer.
Google says it merged its myriad privacy policies in
March 2012 for the sake of simplicity, and that the changes comply with
European laws.
"There is a wider debate going on about personal
data and who owns and controls personal data," said Colin Strong, a
technology analyst with GfK. "The question is the extent to which
consumers understand the value of their personal data and the extent that they
are happy with the trade that they're getting."
Each of the six European states bringing legal action
against Google has to make its own decision on how to handle perceived
violations.
"No one is against Google's objective of simplicity.
It's legitimate. But it needs to be accompanied by transparence for consumers
and the ability to say yes or no," Isabelle Falque Pierrotin, head of
French privacy regulator CNIL, said in a recent interview. "Consumers have
the right to know how the information is being used and what's being done with
it."
But regulations tend to lag technology, and the delay is
more pronounced in a digital age when small bits of information can offer
increasingly powerful - and lucrative - insights into the psyches of consumers
or voters.
Proposed Europe-wide data protection legislation will
take until at least 2015 to be fully implemented. In the meantime, said Falque
Pierrotin, the national privacy regulators must ensure that European consumers
are not vulnerable.
Johannes Caspar, a German data protection commissioner,
said the company's policies were vague - it used the word `may' dozens of times
on a single page when describing its rights to data.
"Many users don't even know what is happening with
their data and might worry that their private information is used to produce
personality profiles of them," Caspar said.
Though consumers have been using the Internet despite the
loss of some data privacy, they appear worried about the potential
consequences. The European Commission says 70 percent of EU citizens are
concerned about the misuse of their personal data; in the United States, about
65 percent are worried, according to a January 2011 Gallup poll.
In March, Google agreed to a $7 million fine to settle a
38-state investigation in the U.S. into software that intercepted emails,
passwords and other sensitive information sent over unprotected wireless
networks in neighborhoods worldwide. Google blamed an engineer who rigged a
data-collection program for its online mapping service that then collected
communications on Wi-Fi networks from early 2008 until the spring 0f 2010.
Earlier this year, Microsoft started an ad campaign
linking Google to privacy concerns, hoping to cause defections to its own
programs.
Two weeks ago, a European Parliament committee signed off
on continent-wide legislation that would include a "right to be
forgotten," requiring companies that operate online to show Internet users
the personal information collected and, if requested, delete it. It's no simple
request when information is gathered from countless computers and mobile
devices and stored on servers all around the world.
In the meantime, it's unclear how far beyond fines the
regulators are willing to go to impose their will on Google.
"I'm glad that the French are plucky and I'm glad
that the French are pushing this," said Anthony Mullen, an analyst with
Forrester Research who advises companies on emerging technologies. "I'm
not sure that Google thinks that French regulators have teeth."
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Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and
Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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