After facing huge pressure from Europe’s data protection regulators, Google, the search engine giant, has finally agreed to change its ‘Privacy policy’. By accepting the promise of Privacy policy change, Google agrees to inform their users in a better way about how it handles their personal information and for what it is being used for.
Britain’s data protection regulator has found out that the privacy policy of the Google is too vague to understand as it lacks clarity and it fails to express its objective. In 2013, ‘Information Commissioner Office’ had blamed Google for being too vague in their Privacy policy and ask them to change it by October 2013. In France and Spain, data protection regulators had already imposed a fine of 150,000 and 900,000 euros respectively. In addition to this, they had also asked Google to make changes in their Privacy policy as such that it follows Data Protection Act.
In 2012 ICO rejected the new Privacy policy changes which Google has made saying that it is not providing sufficient information for users. What Google had done at that time was that it had merged 70 existing privacy policy into one.
In UK, after the voices were raised against the Google’s Privacy policy, Google recently made a formal contract, confirming to make changes to the information that is being imparted to the users. In future, Privacy policy will be according to the Data Protection Act and user will be informed about how their data are being collected and used.
Steve Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement, said,
“Whilst our investigation concluded that this case hasn’t resulted in substantial damage and distress to consumers, it is still important for organisations to properly understand the impact of their actions and the requirement to comply with data protection law.”
United Kingdom is not charging Google right now for its doing as like France and Spain, but they have asked Google to implement the changes till 30 June 2015 and take further steps in next two years.
Google‘s spokesman, replied to this, saying,
“We’re pleased that the ICO has decided to close its investigation. We have agreed improvements to our privacy policy and will continue to work constructively with the Commissioner and his team in the future.”
Google has ensured that it will make changes to its privacy policy to make it more accessible and will also work to change account setting so that user can easily get the controls for which they are looking for. Passive users who are not signed in are also considered just like active users while making all the required changes.
