European regulatory group asks Google to delay its privacy policy consolidation
In its Thursday letter addressed to Google CEO Larry Page, a European regulatory group - the Article 29 Working Party – has sought the postponement of the Internet search giant’s planned move in the direction of privacy policy consolidation.
The letter from the European regulatory group has come in the wake of Google’s last-week announcement that it would bring on one single set of rules – instead of the current nearly 60 privacy policies and terms of service documents - for governing its handling of personal data and usage of its products.
With Google scheduled to roll out its new privacy policy with effect from March 1, 2012, the European regulatory group’s chairman Jacob Kohnstamm has urged Google to “pause” the scheduled implementation of its privacy policy amendments "in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens."
However, Google intends going ahead with the scheduled implementation of its privacy policy changes; and said in a Friday statement that it has been reiterating over the last week that it remains committed to keeping the user privacy unchanged.
In response to the letter by the Article 29 Working Party, Peter Fleischer – Google’s global privacy counsel – said that the data protection officials of the European Union had been briefed about the changes in advance of Google’s January 24 announcement. Fleischer also added that none of the officials had come up with the suggestion that a delay in implementing the change would be appropriate.
