Internet search giant Google recently sparked a wave of criticism with the announcement of a new data privacy policy, which is set to take effect on March 1. As part of the new program, the company will begin to collect user data across all of its many Internet-based services – including Gmail, Google+, YouTube and web search queries – and use the information to target advertising.
Ever since the company's announcement, a fierce data security debate has raged over how far is too far for companies to go to collect information on web users, many of whom may not even be aware of what's going on. According to French data regulators, the new privacy policy crosses the line.
In an email to Google CEO Larry Page, officials with the CNIL, a French data privacy watchdog, have warned that the company's planned efforts will violate European Union data privacy protection legislation.
"Preliminary findings show that Google's new policy fails to meet the requirements of the European Data Protection Directive regarding the information that must be provided to data subjects," a post on the CNIL's English language website stated. "Moreover, the CNIL and the EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of data across services and will continue their investigations with Google's representatives."
Google has said that merging disparate privacy policies into a single strategy will make it easier for Internet users to understand what is being done with their data. But that's not actually the case, according to the CNIL's analysis.
In fact, the new privacy policy may actually be more difficult for users to comprehend. Officials with the data regulator said Google "makes it impossible to understand which purposes, personal data, recipients or access rights are relevant to the use of a specific service."
The CNIL encouraged Google to add processing- and purpose-specific information with the notifications it has already sent out to its millions of users worldwide. Because, as it now stands, the policy raises great fears over what exactly will be done with user data, the CNIL asserted.
Many organizations have jumped into the online privacy debate lately, including the White House. The Obama administration recently released what it is calling a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. According to President Obama, the country's citizens "can't wait any longer for clear rules of the road that ensure their personal information is safe online."
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