Federal court expedites case on Google privacy policies

A federal court said that it would accelerate a lawsuit that aims to punish Google for alleged privacy violations.

The U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia agreed to a request by plaintiffs The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to speed the review of a lawsuit the privacy group filed against the Federal Trade Commission earlier this week. In its suit, EPIC said Google’s planned privacy policy changes scheduled for March 1 will violate a settlement with the FTC. The court ordered the FTC to respond to EPIC’s complaint by Feb. 17. EPIC will then reply to those comments by Feb. 21. The court case adds pressure to Google and could delay its plans to combine databases between its 60 services for account holders of Gmail and other products. The company hopes to form more complete user profiles and then tailor ads to those users’ preferences.