EU presses Google to halt new rules

PanARMENIAN.Net - A group of European regulators has written to Google Inc calling on it to halt the introduction of its new privacy policy, saying it needs to investigate whether the proposals sufficiently protect users' data, Reuters reported.

Google said in January it was simplifying its privacy regulations, consolidating 60 guidelines into a single policy that will function across all its services, including YouTube, Gmail and Google+, its social networking site.

The new policy seeks to explain what information Google collects from the millions of people who use its services every day, why it is collected, how it is used and what choices are then offered to limit how it is accessed and updated.

Regulators are concerned that Google may share personal data across all of its platforms without giving users the chance to give their prior consent.

The Article 29 Working Party, an independent body that brings together data protection authorities from each of the EU's 27 countries and the EU's executive European Commission, said it needed to examine Google's plans more thoroughly before the search group's policy comes into effect on March 1.

Lawmakers and civil liberties groups in the United States are also concerned by Google's plans to include photos and posts from users' Google+ accounts in search results.