EU Gives Google Privacy Policy Suggestions About Data Protection

itwbennett writes In a letter to Google (PDF) that was published Thursday, the Article 29 Working Party, an umbrella group for European data protection authorities, said Google's privacy policy, in addition to being clear and unambiguous, should also include an exhaustive list of the types of personal data processed. But if all that information is overwhelming to users, Google should personalize the privacy policy to show users only the data processing it is performing on their data.

Comments

Re:Personalized privacy policies?

[BarbaraHudson]

"Google should personalize the privacy policy to show users only the data processing it is performing on their data."

13. Shared data. The subscriber agrees by uploading personal data to Google cloud that any dick pics are both hackable and for sale to the highest bidder.

And guys will want to show that theirs is "bigger and better", so they'll bid on their own pics rather than having them sit there for one tenth of a cent. Google can make a fortune by having shill bids bump the price up. I'm sure they'd be able to develop algorithms that would bring the biggest yields.

Or they can go the "social media" route. "George, your friend Harry just received a bid of $50.00. Your current high is ten cents. Would you like to put a reserve bid on your pic? Suggested amounts are $50, $100, or [ENTER AMOUNT HERE].

BOYCOTT SLASHDOT

[Anonymous Coward]

Until ads that randomly play sound are removed!

Slashdot has started adding these ads that randomly play very loud sound. It violates sensible netiquette. Accidentally leaving a slashdot window open causes your computer to make a noise randomly at night, in a meeting, etc.

Unfortunately, this isn't going to change until it affects their revenue. Boycott slashdot until these ads are gone!!

Re:BOYCOTT SLASHDOT

[Anonymous Coward]

Noscript. There is very few legit reasons for a webpage to pull in and run third party scripts, it's just a security risk.
A few serve content from another domain for load distribution, but they are few enough to whitelist.

If page owners want me to see their ads they'd better server them themselves and make sure that the ads doesn't contain anything malicious.
The reason they don't right now is because of the lack of trust between the advertiser and the page owner, yet they expect me to trust them both.

Re:BOYCOTT SLASHDOT

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of whether it's internal or external. A website should NEVER play a sound without the user's permission.

Slashdot should have the sensibility to drop the advertiser who forcibly play sound.

The only people who are still seeing ads on Slashdot are the people who are trying to be nice. The rest already use an ad blocker. Slashdot reciprocates nice users with annoying loud ads.

Last Straw

[swooshxx]

The "right to be forgotten" was bad enough, but the moving target anti-trust, and now this?

The EU citizens will continue to sit on their hands until inspired to take action. They need to confront the tech-incompetent and xenophobic "authorities" they have in place now. Google should shut down their EU servers (Gmail, Maps, Translate, Music, etc) for one month, without disclosing the duration...maybe then the lazy EU citizens will start to see what kind of world their governments are creating.

Re:Last Straw

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so naive. This isn't the result of bumbling and incompetent European politicians, this is the result of skilled lobbying by European companies. For Google to withdraw from the European market is exactly what they want to achieve; it's the only way they can compete.

Re:Last Straw

[Keyboard Rage]

One without power hungry, oppressing, totalitarian, inquisitive, spying, monopolistic corporations that think they can decide how the world works instead of democracy. The day Google gets split up is the day I (and many others) will cheer.

Re:Last Straw

[oneandoneis2]

As an EU citizen, I was delighted when the "right to be forgotten" ruling began a debate that's long overdue about online privacy. And I have no problem with the company at the absolute forefront of gathering information about individuals being told "Tell people what you're gathering, yes it's your problem to make it accessible."

The Internet we HAVE, where all information that can be gained about a person is considered fair game, is not necessarily the one anyone actually WANTS. The EU should be applauded for insisting that actual thought be applied to what's going on instead of just allowing the endless procession of "Hey, we can do this! So we'll do it from now!"

You can call them "tech-incompetent", but I label people with your attitude "social-phobic". The only limit on what's happened on the internet since its inception is "What's technically possible?", it's about time the people who asked "What do we want to permit?" got some room at the table.

Re: Last Straw

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the Nazis are those who collect information and build files on people out of it for future use. This year it is targeted advertising, next year it is selective pricing, and at some point in time the government dips into the data, likes it and then it gets real ugly real fast. You can see a fast forward in Putin's Russia.

Re:Last Straw

[alexkaskasoli]

Yes, because we Americans are the only critical and free thinkers left in the world. For having spent some time on continental Europe, I can promise you they say the same thing about every predominantly white anglo-saxon country, aka "Five Eyes".

Re:Last Straw

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Of course! As an EU-citizen, you believe that the state should have unlimited ability to look into your private life, for your own good and the good of society

Interesting. The same people in the US who want to deregulate business want unlimited ability to regulate individuals' private lives. what do you label them?

Google is pretty good here

[NitWit005]

Read Google's privacy policy: http://www.google.com/policies.... It seems fairly readable to me. A list per-service might be theoretically useful, but I doubt a normal human would read through each of them.

But take a moment and look at what Google offers here. Google lets you see most of your data on your account dashboard, view and edit your search history, view and edit what ad categories are targeted at you, sign up for account activity reports, and has fairly readable multi-lingual help pages. That's better than almost anyone else.

Maybe Google's advertising practices or monopoly power are issues, but on the issue of data transparency, I think they passed the "good enough" level quite some time ago. The real issue appears to be that even if a company provides good information, no one will bother to look at it.

Re:Google is pretty good here

[martin-boundary]

fairly readable to me. A list per-service might be theoretically useful, but I doubt a normal human would read through each of them.

Isn't that the whole point of this suggestion? People don't like to read impersonal legalese, their eyes glaze over as soon as things get too abstract. But a clear personal document which says "Hey Joe, you bought those slippers for your wife yesterday, and we've passed this information to the following companies: Nike, Kmart, and Kink.com. Nike has bought an ad to show you a pair of women's tennis shoes at $99.95 tomorrow night when you're reading CNN, Kmart has bought your online purchasing history for the last two weeks, which includes the groceries you bought, the 50m of rope you got last sunday, and the timings of your drive home every monday. Kink has subscribed to your google account update feed, which includes realtime alerts any time you buy bondage related products in the next 6 months, because we told them about the 50m of rope and the average amount you spend monthly on non-essentials.

The beauty of this particulary suggestion is in fact that Google are working very hard already to do personalization, it's just that they want to exploit you via this information. So it shouldn't be difficult for them to show you everything, if forced to do so.

Re:Google is pretty good here

[swillden]

"Hey Joe, you bought those slippers for your wife yesterday, and we've passed this information to the following companies: Nike, Kmart, and Kink.com. Nike has bought an ad to show you a pair of women's tennis shoes at $99.95 tomorrow night when you're reading CNN, Kmart has bought your online purchasing history for the last two weeks, which includes the groceries you bought, the 50m of rope you got last sunday, and the timings of your drive home every monday. Kink has subscribed to your google account update feed, which includes realtime alerts any time you buy bondage related products in the next 6 months, because we told them about the 50m of rope and the average amount you spend monthly on non-essentials."

Google doesn't give any of your information to any advertisers, so a statement of this sort would be empty.

I think it would be really good for everyone, including Google, if Google could find a way to make this point clear to everyone. Google sells ad placement, not user information. Advertisers don't get to control who sees their ads; they don't even have much capability to target specific demographics. Instead, they rely on Google to do the targeting which works well because (a) Google is better at it then advertisers would be anyway, (b) advertisers don't pay except when the user clicks (speaking of adwords here; there's also a smaller display ads business which works differently, but without giving advertisers more information or control) and (c) Google provides advertisers with great tools to determine their return on advertising investment. (c) is really what has made Google the powerhouse in this space: by allowing advertisers to see exactly how effective their ad campaigns are or are not, Google solved one of the oldest problems in advertising, the "I know half of my advertising budget is working, I just don't know which half" problem.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google but I am speaking for myself.)

Re:Personalized privacy policies?

[Errol backfiring]

13. Shared data. anyone lured to our servers agrees by uploading personal data to Google cloud that any dick pics are both hackable and for sale to the highest bidder.

There, fixed that for you. You don't have to be a subscriber to be stalked by Google. There's no consent. Google is the major company that made internet browsing without adblockers downright impossible.

I think it is a sensible suggestion

[Brandano]

And should be implemented, as long as all other providers of online services are held to the same standards.

Re:Personalized privacy policies?

[davester666]

and by "highest bidder", you mean "everyone who bids, pays the amount they bid and receives the pictures"