14 DAY TRIAL // The lawsuit against Google involving the company’s privacy policy will move on, despite Google’s efforts to have it dismissed.
According to Reuters, US District Judge Paul Grewald has ruled against Google, deciding that the case where the company is accused of misleading consumers by spreading user data across several products and giving info to advertisers without explicit user consent will go on.
The lawsuit was filed soon after the privacy policy change Google implemented in 2012, when all its services were united under the same privacy policy, whether they were YouTube, Maps, Gmail, or the search engine.
Google claims that this has brought a better overall experience for users, but privacy advocates aren’t so sure about that, saying that the company’s aim was to increase its advertising revenues. This, users say, has put in danger their privacy by exposing names, email addresses, and geo locations.
The issue with Google’s policy isn’t necessarily that it was implemented, but rather that users weren’t offered any alternatives or an opt-out, basically being forced to accept.
The judge has also said that Google must face breach of contract and fraud claims by users of Android-powered devices who had downloaded at least one Android application from Google Play. On the other hand, several parts of the lawsuit have been dismissed. For instance, claims brought on behalf of users who switched to non-Android devices after the privacy policy change.
Across the pond, in Italy, Google has just recently been ordered to make things right and to come up with a new set of data use practices. The decision comes after a lengthy investigation into the way the Mountain View company handles user data following the 2012 changes to its privacy policy, when some 60 policies were merged into one.
The Italian data protection regulator has taken the executive decision of ordering Google to change things up accordingly within the next 18 months or face consequences. Of course, the consequences aren’t really all that concerning, since a €1 million ($1.34 million) fine is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the company that had $16 billion (€11.8 billion) in revenue in the second quarter and a profit of $3.42 billion (€2.52 billion).
These are likely the first of many such decisions that Google will have to face due to the controversial changes to its policy. In Europe, the search giant may have the hardest time yet because the Union’s attitude towards privacy is quite strict and Google’s efforts to wiggle past the rules haven’t really paid off so far.