Will Europe Upend Google’s New Privacy Plan?

 

By Ian Paul
PCWorld
Feb 3, 2012

European data protection authorities are asking Google to delay its roll out of a new consolidated privacy policy that will further integrate your personal information across all of Google’s services. The European Union’s Article 29 Working Party, a European umbrella organization that includes 27 data protection authorities in the EU, sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page Thursday asking for more time to study the company’s policy update.

“We call for a pause [in the new privacy policy roll out] in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens,” wrote (PDF) Article 29 Chairman Jacob Kohnstamm.

If Google did delay its privacy policy, it’s not clear whether it would affect users in other parts of the globe including the United States.

Google says it is willing to discuss any concerns European regulators might have, but stops short of saying it will honor the request to put the new privacy policy on hold. “We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement,” Google said in a statement to PCWorld.“None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time — and we’ve now started the largest communication to users in our history. The changes do not come into place until March 1, and we’re happy to talk any [data protection authority] that has questions through our changes between now and then.”

Google’s new privacy policy brings together more than 60 privacy policies from various Google products into one document. The new policy enables Google to consolidate your personal information strewn about various Google services so that Google can treat you as a single user across all of its products. Google currently has more than 70 individual privacy policies covering all of its services.

Read more: Will Europe Upend Google’s New Privacy Plan?

 

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