Google Gets Threatened Again, This Time by France
posted Friday Jun 21, 2013 by Scott Ertz
Is there a point where Google will stop doing things that get them into legal trouble? Between an FTC investigation and imminent antitrust suit, a disaster with their street view cars stealing data and, of course, bypassing Safari's security settings, it seems like they are always up to some stupid game. This week seems like it will not the a legal slowdown for the company, however, as the government of France has issued an ultimatum to the company.
France's National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties has issued a 90 warning against the search giant to change its privacy policy or face fines of $595,000. Google changed their privacy policy to a universal, all property policy that covers everything from Gmail to YouTube and search. One of the initial concerns over the policy change was the amount of data that Google collects about its users and how long it keeps it for.
Apparently this has caused France to challenge the policy officially, because these are exactly the issues raised in the complaint. Combined with Google's possible willingness to participate in the PRISM spy program, there should definitely be concern from everybody about the types of data Google is collecting and for how long they have it.
While the fine might not sound like a lot for a company of Google's size, the rest of the story is what is truly important. If Google fails to comply with France, every European nation will file similar complaints, most of which will not ask for such a small dollar amount. If they all don't comply, we will see a threat of removing Google from European Internet providers. THAT will certainly hurt the company quickly.
