Google Faces Coordinated EU Action for Privacy Violations

Google continues to enrage data protection authorities in the European Union (“EU”) by refusing to comply with their recommendations made over the last year to reverse changes to its privacy policies made in March 2012. The company combined 60 privacy policies into one, combining data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and social network Google+. Consumer data is shared across its web services, without giving users the means to opt-out. The EU watchdogs say Google’s policy may violate European privacy law, which is currently in the process of reform towards tighter regulations on data privacy and a framework that would provide more clarity on the way companies and foreign governments are allowed to handle the private data of Europeans. While EU data protection is coordinated from Brussels, privacy law is enforced on the national level. Earlier this year, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, comprised of national privacy authorities from each member state in the EU, decided to pursue Google after a meeting in Brussels. Currently, six European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, are threatening legal action.