Google Privacy Policy Could Violate EU Law 135
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the do-not-want dept.
from the do-not-want dept.
judgecorp writes "Google's new unified privacy policy could violate EU law, according to objections. The French data regulator warns that the policy will infringe users' privacy by building a single online profile. Commission Nationale de L’informatique et Des Libertes (CNIL) has expressed “deep concerns” about the policy and its adherence to the European Data Protection Directive."
Not a bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
To be honest, having different terms and conditions for every service that Google runs must have been quite confusing for a lot of people*, so consolidating them into one package does make sense.
I can however understand the problem with Google now being able to use data collected from one service and now using it in another, but if all they're doing is using it to target us with more specific ads then I don't really care.
* I've never read the T's and C's and to be honest I reckon only a very small number of Google users have.
If the services had started out integrated (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about MSN passport? (Score:4, Interesting)
Right.. more FUD...
What about this? [computerworld.com]
Don't take my word for it. On privacyscore.com [privacyscore.com], you can check the privacy comparisons between Google and MS websites yourself and look at the breakdowns.
Re:Use another service? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if he's worried about the cookies, he can use a feature present on most modern browsers to go incognito or private or whatever. That works if they track with cookies. Most modern browsers will also let you delete things selectively (as in, "last hour").
If they track by IP (Which I doubt) then, good luck since most of the world is behind dynamic IP's that change every 4 days or so.
If they're going by your addon signature or any shady tactic like that (which I doubt, since they seem to be under a whole lot of scrutiny lately), simply don't install all your stuff on a "porn browser, creating a bogus signature.
Even chrome is getting a "do not track" button, so there is also that.
Either way, the only thing they are doing now that they didn't do before is sharing the info throughout your account. If he doesn't have an account, what's his problem? Because every ad company will track you.
And furthermore, I highly doubt that everyone complaining doesn't have a social network account or something like that. Those are far worse because, since google uses the analytics themselves, they won't be sharing anything relevant with no one else in order to get a competitive edge. Facebook is not on the advertising business, so they DO share the info of their users with others (which, in my opinion, is way worse).
EU vs. US on privacy (Score:5, Interesting)