14 DAY TRIAL // French privacy regulators are making a formal request for Google to amend its privacy policy. The French CNIL gave Google three months to make the necessary changes or face a fine of €150,000 ($200,000) and a further €300,000 ($400,000) if the company continues to ignore the issue after the first fine.
CNIL also warned the search giant that several other privacy regulators in Europe will be making similar demands. By the end of July, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and possibly Britain will ask Google for changes to its privacy policy.
The changes stem from a privacy policy change Google instituted last year. It unified the privacy policy across most of its products and merged dozens of such agreements into a single document.
European regulators weren't happy with the move and urged Google to reconsider. The company went ahead with the change, arguing that it believes it is in full compliance with European laws.
Regulators asked Google to make changes in October, but the search giant ignored those requests. Now, regulators are asking more sternly.
"This formal notice does not aim to substitute for Google to define the concrete measures to be implemented, but rather to make it reach compliance with the legal principles, without hindering either its business model or its innovation ability," CNIL wrote in a statement.
The issues regulators have with the new privacy policy are that Google didn't ask users for approval, and the company doesn't make it very clear how it handles private data.
CNIL wants Google to explain to users what it does with the data. It also wants it to stop storing data after it is no longer required for the purpose for which it was gathered.
It also wants the search giant to "fairly collect and process" passive data, particularly data collected by DoubleClick, Analytics and +1 buttons.