EU data bosses order Google to sort out privacy

EU data regulators have told Google that it has to make changes to its new privacy policy due to "incomplete information and uncontrolled combination of data across services". The regulators, led by France's Commission Nationale de l'Informatique (CNIL), have spent several months investigating the policy, which basically …

[Norm DePlume]

Don't be evil enough to get caught?

Perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing all your data (and OS/GUI designs) is how Google make money. How will they be able to data mine and sell on the information if they can't spy on all your actions?

[Chika]

It was only a matter of...

Actually, I've noticed a few unsavoury things about Google in the last couple of years or so. Releasing versions of its browser designed to get around security measures, for example.

Then this policy shake up comes along. I can't say that I'm surprised at this coming to pass as, just as Microsoft before, a major US company connected with the use and application of computers has assumed too much and has marched across the rights and privacy of citizens, both within its own country and elsewhere and expect to get away with it due to the assumed apathy of said citizens.

I doubt that they will be the last either.

[Mike Judge]

Yes Microsoft does the EXACT same thing and gets a free pass.

http://marketingland.com/microsoft-privacy-change-google-attacked-23598

I suppose that's the screwed up world we live in, where you can release significant privacy changes at a odd time of day on an obscure blog, and get away with it, but if you are upfront and honest, the media drag you over the hot coals...

#EPICMEDIAFAIL

[Phoenix50]

Re: Yes Microsoft does the EXACT same thing and gets a free pass.

Please, spare us your vaunted Google fandroid chatter.

If you think Google is being "upfront and honest" in pretty much anything it does you're one wireless router short of a StreetView data slurp.

[Cico]

Re: Yes Microsoft does the EXACT same thing and gets a free pass.

Good analogy! An obscure blog and Goggle have the same exact potential and the same issues with privacy...

[Anonymous Coward]

google : privacy

Oxy : moron

[ratfox]

No kidding

Of course Google sets no clear limits. They don't want to get burned by getting caught doing something which is explicitly disallowed by their T&Cs. I dare say that these demands from the CNIL are mostly useless. The only way for users to have clear guarantees is for the T&Cs to be dictated by somebody else.

[veti]

I remember before Google was Evil

But now, given a free choice between the two companies, I'd actually prefer to deal with Microsoft. At least when they ask me for money, they tell me what they're charging me and what they're offering in exchange.

How much is Google making from me, and who's paying them for it, and what precisely are they getting in return? There's simply no way of finding that out.

[<shakes head>]

Re: I remember before Google was Evil

i must admit i stopped using Google for anything but search a few years ago, and the reason i didnot go android was the sync process needed to go via Google servers, a complete no no for me.

but each to his own.

[Trustme]

Maybe they're called CNIL for a reason....?

How can you be berated by an organisation that calls itself CNIL and take it seriously?