Google's privacy policy violates Dutch data protection law, Dutch DPA says

Google's practice of combining personal data from different Google services violates the Dutch data protection act, the Dutch data protection authority (DPA) said. But Google will not face any enforcement actions for now.

In March 2012, Google introduced a new privacy policy that allows Google to share personal data across all its products and services. However, Google made the changes without having adequately informed users, and without asking for their consent, the Dutch DPA said. "The investigation shows that Google does not properly inform users which personal data the company collects and combines, and for what purposes," it said. By doing this, Google "spins an invisible web of our personal data, without our consent," which is forbidden by law, the DPA said. Just inviting users to agree to a general privacy policy and terms of service does not suffice, the Dutch DPA said. "It is almost impossible not to use Google services on the Internet," the DPA said.

(Nov 28)