French data cops to Google: RIGHT, you had your chance. PUNISHMENT time Google has declined to make required changes to its privacy policy, France's privacy watchdog said today. The French data cops added that they will slap the ad giant with sanctions. The Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) - on behalf of the European Union's Article 29 Working Party - headed up an …
No they are arguing that the French law doesn't apply to online services. Given that French data protection law was written and past way back in 1968 they may have a point, depending what the specific language use in the law.
If they are right, the law wouldn't apply to any French online company or indeed any company on the planet until the French updated the laws.
"Given that French data protection law was written and past way back in 1968 they may have a point, depending what the specific language use in the law."
I very much doubt that the French law would stipulate that data protection law is only valid for specified types of data. Doesn't matter if the data is stored on dead tree or in cloudy bits, the law is most likely completely valid in this respect.
1. the law is from 1978, NOT 1968.
2. The French data protection act has been updated multiple times since ...
When you have no clue, please refrain from commenting.
See https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_relative_%C3%A0_l%27informatique,_aux_fichiers_et_aux_libert%C3%A9s_du_6_janvier_1978 (excuse wikipedia's French)
BTW, how come Google acknowledges the European cookie legislation ?
Google is in a bad situation and I am sure Facebook will team up with them !
All your data is belong to US.
Probably true. Which may speak volumes about the intent of the enforcement agencies.
Do I want Google tracking me like a commercial version of the NSA? No. But we need to follow the rules when ensuring they aren't.
It seems to me the proper course of action would be for the committee to go through the legal case in the courts establishing that the rule does apply. If the courts aren't involved and it is strictly an administrative hearing under the auspices of the committee I regard it as an improper legal procedure because there is no system of checks and balances.
The main purpose of the Data Protection laws is to ensure that data stored on computers is controlled and not misused.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that Google has several large data centers full of computers, where they store the peronally identifiable data of visitors and registered users of their services.
Or is that merely a front and they have an infinite number of monkies writing the data on index cards and pull them back out and typing the information onto terminals which bung the information at users? If that is the case, I take it all back, they may well be exhempt from data protection laws...
Jail is better.
To a company like Google, slapping a fine for non-compliance (or "law-breaking" as the traditionalists might call it) means very little. Even confiscating the advertising revenue they make in France would only be a minor annoyance.
However, their stance that "your law does not apply to us" needs some serious attention. Flinging a few americans into a french jail until the company makes itself legal would certainly have a direct and personal effect on the decision makers of the company. It would show Google that they cannot take such a patronising position and above all else, it would be wonderful theatre for the rest of us to watch.
You never know, you might even get a few brits saying "Go, Frenchie!"
Given how French bureaucracy works, there'll be 6 months in writing the writ, 12 months getting it to be heard at the "cour de cessation", another 24 months of deliberation after both sides have made their stance until a decision can be reached, by which time, 2-3yrs have passed by which time Googles terms have changed so any decision is null and void.
quelle horreur! ... mais ton idee ne marche pas
French bureaucracy is notoriously long, but they are not going to back down on a foreign company so easily. noncompliance with an order, regardless of how long google try to drag this on will result in fines mounting, patience wearing thin, etc.
"putain Americans" is a prevailing sentiment here
"Jail is better."
Putting the boot on the other foot, perhaps Google should stop their services being accessed from any French IP address, and systematically eliminate anything French from their search results. That would be most amusing.
Would France even exist if you could only find it with Bing?
There is a cultural issue here. Google management seems to be only capable of thinking along US lines, where sufficient sponsorship to the right political party will get you a "get out of jail" card. Their assumption that Europe works the same way is what got them into this mess.
What isn't well known is that after the original Art 29 Working Group letter, Google may not have responded formally, but the corridors in Brussel as well as Switzerland were think with Google sponsored lobbyists. In this context, I assume Switzerland wasn't lobbied as part of the EU problem, but because the Swiss with their strong privacy laws were already on the ball, and would see the Art 29 warning as an extra validation of their position - in any case, Google was trying to do the US thing of engineering itself out of this without admitting guilt.
The problem is that current fines are puny. Google will not change its way unless a fine really hurts, but simply write it off as the cost of doing business..
Realistically, though, we are going to see no such thing. Instead, Google will either relent soonish and start following the law or be forced to do so after a (more or less prolonged) court battle. Although the initial fines may be of no consequece to them as such, they cannot simply pay and continue to operate as if nothing had happened as this would amount to an admission of guilt and continuing breaking the law, which, in turn, would just result in litigation, criminal and civil, from the hopeless position of having admitted guilt and continuing with the offense.
A large business pulling out of a country is rare and risky. Greed plays a major factor, obviously, but so does a service vacuum.
Google did what they did in China because they cannot displace the leader there, pulling out didn't leave a real hole. Pulling out of an EU country would create an opportunity for a competitor who better meets French and EU privacy standards to become the preferred EU search provider. That's a sizable market to risk. It isn't good business strategy to provide a competitor with such an opening, especially now that other search providers are growing (slowly) towards meeting the challenge from Google.
They pulled out of china because of US political pressure and their image with their US customers - "Advertise with Google, the company that sends more users to concentration camps than any other search engine"
Standing up at a US company meeting and saying: "we are handing Europe back to Microsoft because they wont let us spy on customers there, don't be evil (tm)". Is hardly going to go down as well.
About ten years ago my mother decided to try to return to the "Buy American" roots of her union parents. She gave up after a few weeks. She couldn't find anything in the stores that wasn't made overseas. She noted it was nearly impossible to buy clothing that wasn't made in China. I don't imagine the situation has improved since then.
an opportunity for a competitor who better meets French and EU privacy standards...
Technically you are correct, but when you consider the competition (mostly US based companies) - do any of them really meet our privacy standards? The focus is only on Google because of the monopoly position - I don't think the likes of Microsoft are doing anything differently - and they're all handing over masses of data on Euro-citizens to the NSA.
Well Europe alone is at least 50% bigger than than America, and globally some 95% of the population is not in America so it is definitely about time the USA stopped throwing its weight around. The world is becoming increasingly annoyed by the arrogance of the US so it might be a good idea for them to realise this.
As for doing without Google, I doubt if that would be a problem, and why not do without Apple as well !
Google's philosophy: "You can make money without doing evil." Is not following another country's laws not evil? I.e., is their inaction evil, or does evil require explicit action?
The European governments should just block Google and its services. Pull the cord on the guillotine, and sever the connection. Google with come around when their revenue goes flat. If the users want to use Google services that badly, then they can go through a proxy to do it, and then the governments can say to the users, "Hey, you went out of your way to get reamed by Google. Tough!"
After all, it's a two-way street with Google. The users want Google's data, and Google wants the user's data. A service that didn't sell user's data or advertise at them would have to be funded by subscription fees. Now, when was the last time something like that worked on the Internet?
" ... would have to be funded by subscription fees ...."
I wonder if anyone has done some kind of usage analysis of how people use Google services, what convenience and benefit the services give to the user and how much those services are actually worth to the average user. (Note: Watching cat videos does not have a high, if any, value to a sane user, no matter how much it costs to host the videos or deliver them.)
My use of free online newspapers means that I save enough money every month to pay for my cable internet connection, an easily calculated benefit. What does Google do for me (or Josephine Average) and how much _should_ I/we be willing to pay for it?
A service that didn't sell user's data or advertise at them would have to be funded by subscription fees. Now, when was the last time something like that worked on the Internet?
Ask Blizzard or CCP?
Vimeo seem to have a paid service too, if you fancy an alternative to Youtube.
Unless google actually host services in france, why should they follow french law?
There are thousands of websites out there which are perfectly legal in one country, but highly illegal in another... What makes the law of france any more valid than any other country?
Pornography is illegal in many countries, as is criticising the government etc...
What is needed however, is education for the users... Users should have it made clear to them that by submitting their data to a foreign site they will not be protected by their own local data protection laws, and depending on the laws in the country where the site is operated they may not have any data protection whatsoever on their side.
@Joe Montana, isn't that the point; the French are asking for the Ts & Cs to be more explicit about what is done by Google with the data...? Isn't it really Google's responsibility to provide this information in the form of their contract with the user, so the user can make that educated and informed decision?
Good point - if this was a middle-eastern regime that was threatening Google for not handing over data most would be saying exactly the same - if there's no servers hosted there and no business being done - there is no case to answer.
If they do have offices and bank accounts however....
If you mean about changes to data protection act currently going through EU, I doubt they will apply to Google and the changes it made last year, it very unlikely they will make the law retrospective, large parts of it are already facing legal troubles, it apparently incompatible with German constitution for example, Britain and among others are trying to water down the proposals.
If you mean that other EU countries currently running separate enquiries into whether Google breach their own data protection laws, then I say it extremely unlikely that all of them will get past the investigation stage, even few of them will survive the courts, it hard for example to see what Google did wrong under the UK Data protection act of 1998 for example.
If I set up a website intending only for my own countries people to use and people from all of the world choose to, does that mean i automatically have to comply with every country in the worlds laws? Sounds kind of stupid to me. I know in Googles case they fully operate in France, but I dont see some countries attitudes being different even if they didn't, take Twitter for example and some countries attitudes where Twitter does not have an office.
If I was these companies I would simply tell them I won't be complying and stop messing around.
"If I set up a website intending only for my own countries people to use and people from all of the world choose to, does that mean i automatically have to comply with every country in the worlds laws? Sounds kind of stupid to me. I know in Googles case they fully operate in France, but I dont see some countries attitudes being different even if they didn't, take Twitter for example and some countries attitudes where Twitter does not have an office.
If I was these companies I would simply tell them I won't be complying and stop messing around."
You could do that. Just hope that it's not a powerful country, like the US, or one that you have any dealings with, otherwise they'll arrest you when you drop by.
""If I set up a website intending only for my own countries people to use and people from all of the world choose to, does that mean i automatically have to comply with every country in the worlds laws?"
If that were as far as it went, then it depends. How much money are you being paid by foreign customers? Significant amounts will put you into the international arena and subject to international laws.
But this not the case with Google. Google has specifically set up and specifically tailored its services on a per country basis.
No, what we have here is yet another corporation arguing it has superior rights to individuals basic rights and even the governments'.
@bigtimehustler good job we use aliases on here, people won't be able to tell you to your face how stupid you look when making comments about something that's obviously completely over your head.
FYI. Google serve French users as they do everyone else, because they make money from doing so, they're not a charity, everything you think they give away for free, you are paying for. Like many multinationals, they leach capital out of France and pay very little back, in fact they pay back a lower percentage than a settled French business would.
impressively stupid even by american standards. I go to a foreign country, set up shop and I have to obey their laws? whatever next?
a lot of yanks do think like this though, the constitution seems to follow them around and give them the right to bear arms anywhere on the planet. there was a story that the swiss faced down and disarmed presidential (ie us president) bodyguards at an airport. nice story if true...
In this case Google does have an office, but say it was to remove that office and not pursue French customers, if they choose to come anyway, is that Google's problem? Should they abide by French law just because its citizens have decided to use the service? Think about this in relation to an internet startup and all the countries in the world trying to impose their laws.
bigtimehustler,
> In this case Google does have an office, but say it was to remove that office and not pursue French customers
Yeah, imagine if this situation were totally different. Then it'd be different, wouldn't it?
Yes, it would. It would also be different if Google were an online bicycle shop. Your point?
As for your contention that it is impossible to follow the laws of every country you operate in, what utter utter bollocks. I work in banking. If what you suggest were true, we could use that as a convenient excuse for money laundering. Guess what? We don't.
I work in banking. If what you suggest were true, we could use that as a convenient excuse for money laundering. Guess what? We don't.
Obviously you don't work for HSBC, BOA, JPMC, Citi, Goldman Sachs or Barclays then? Or the majority of other global investment banks for that matter... always remember the Golden Rule, those with the Gold, make the Rules.
These European gimmie, gimmie, gimmie types aren't capable of engaging in consistent thinking. On the one hand, they think it should be legal for British online gaming houses to allow Americans to gamble, on the other, they think France should be able to dictate Google's rules. They're a lot like your typical 0bama voter. Maybe because they're cut from the same statist cloth.
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