After a £14m fine for breaching Safari users’ “do not track” settings, Google has now ignored EU privacy directive 95/46 and faces enforcement actions from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK which could result in criminal prosecution and cancellation of contracts.
Six EU data protection agencies are proposing legal action agianst Google over its privacy policy, after a four-month deadline to change the policy expired with Google making "no changes". Google said its privacy policy "respects European law". The Article 29 European Commission working party on data protection reported in October 2012 that Google's privacy policy did not meet Commission standards.
Privacy expert Simon Davies says "Google’s refusal to obey the lawful instructions of EU authorities is likely to reverse the fortunes of the draft data protection regulation", and explains that Google’s amalgamated privacy policy aggregates data across all of its products and services. All of this data can be exploited at will by any other part of the company, so that personal information cannot be fire-walled or given specific protection. Google's core business model seeks to monetise user information without limit, and blatantly violates data protection rules.
In another development Alma Whitten, Google's privacy director, has stepped down from her job. She was appointed Google's first privacy director in 2010.
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