Google's New Privacy Policy Faces Worldwide Criticism
Google's controversial new privacy policy kicked in today, stirring legal warnings from the European Union as well as Japan. EU's justice commissioner directly warned Google that its new policy breaches European law, while Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications along with the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry both published a reminder notice sent to Google's Japan subsidiary about following the country's privacy laws.
The revamped privacy policy allows Google to share a users data among its services, including YouTube, Gmail, and Blogger. Altogether, about 60 Google services will be united under one privacy policy. Therefore, what you watch on YouTube could affect your Google Search results and what ads you see in your Gmail account. There is no way for users to opt-out of sharing this information, if they wish to use any of Google's myriad of services.
The EU believes that the new policy breaches its laws and that the transparency rules have not been applied. Other privacy groups also criticize the changes, saying that it gives Google more ways to dig deeper into the private information of its users. However, Google continues to stress that the company will not be collecting more data with the new policy. The data collected will be the same as before except that it will be collated for an improved user experience.