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back to article Euro watchdog asks Google to HALT privacy tweak

A European Union watchdog has written to Google boss Larry Page asking him to explain how personal data will be safeguarded when the search giant puts its revised privacy policy into effect on 1 March. European Commissioner Viviane Reding, who last week tabled her proposed overhaul of the EU's 1995 Data Protection law, …

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  1. Ben Tasker

    I can see your corrections

    The move comes a day after Google execs were, it is understood, asked for more money^H^H^H^H^H grilled by US lawmakers behind closed doors on Thursday. According to The Hill, Rep. Mary Bono Mack said she was dissatisfied with the size of Googles Cheque^H^H^H^H^H Google's response to Congress.

    To be fair if it's merging everything to a single privacy policy I can't see the issue, except it's never just that is it? A bit like when we standardised on the metric system and started selling fuel by the litre. Would've been fine, except, oh look prices managed to rise because few people bothered to work out what the cost per gallon would have been at the new price point

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  2. Kevin Johnston

    Change of business model

    So often the point of failure for companies. They were sort of doing OK with the old method and some bright spark says "ooh look, we have all this data etc etc, surely we can make money out of it". Odd thing is said bright spark has always moved on with glowing reports before it hits the fan.

    Google did what they did very well but as time went on they felt the need to monetise everything and as soon as that happens you are going to start the timer. As more and more aspects are brought into the cash-cow fold the irritiation levels rise until the tipping point where you change from 'Do no evil' to 'Do What??'

    It looks very much like Google are now there and you wonder if the top ranks at Google care enough about their rep to take a step back. Of course if the top rank are all bean-counters then the end is in sight.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gmail...

    ...yea, whatever. Noone with any sense uses it do they?? Why use something that wants to tie so much crap together and spy on you.... I don't get it. Like Facebook, I don't get it.

    Just use transient, on the fly email addresses if you want anything like anonymity in email. Don't come crying about Gmail now! What it is has been patently obvious for years!

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    1. Vic
      Reply Icon

      > Noone with any sense uses it do they?

      They do now.

      I have an unpleasant suspicion that this is what Google's new "privacy policy"[1] is all about.

      Android is very much on the rise. But using many of Google's embedded services means you associate each device with a gmail account. This change looks nastily like a land-grab of a whole bunch of data from Android users.

      Vic.

      [1] Ha!

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Android folks have little choice

        Pretty much everything on my phone is tied to my google account, and they try to rip geolocation info from me every chance they can. And I don't have a choice for another year, because on this side of the pond, it's 2-year contract or nothing.

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        1. Vic
          Reply Icon

          > on this side of the pond, it's 2-year contract or nothing

          Are you living in the Land of the Free?

          Sometimes it's easier getting by in the anachronism we have over on this side :-)

          Vic.

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  4. Semaj
    Stop

    Mary Bono Mack

    Jeez, just because you are a woman you don't NEED to mention family and children at every possible (however contrived) opportunity. Maybe if female politicians stopped being such stereotypes people would take them a bit more seriously.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      contrived, no, trading on a legacy, yes.

      Optional (can't get this light grey, though)

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  5. despairing citizen
    Big Brother

    EU Choice of Reviewing Authority

    It is interesting that despite the obvious language advantages, the EU did not ask the UK ICO to review the data protection issues.

    Could it be that the Article 29 working party has a low opinion of the ICO after the Cookie directive fiaso and the Levison enquiry heaing that the ICO did not think they could take on News of the Screws, et al.

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  6. Dalen
    Coat

    So it's a HALTing problem?

    Mine's the one with a non-deterministic finite state machine in the pocket.

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  7. ArielS

    Generally, CNIL and the German authority (ies, really) are seen as the strictest in Europe. That does not bode well for Google.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google tells EU to sod off

    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8syaai6SSfiMDEyM2Q3YmEtNWUxZi00Mzc2LTljMTktZmExYjc0M2IyZWVh/edit?hl=en_US&ndplr=1

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  9. ratfox
    Childcatcher

    "what this really means for the safety of our families and our children"

    Wow... Privacy policies are serious business. Thank god somebody thinks of the children!

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