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Google Avoids Fine In UK But Will Change Its Privacy Policies

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-another-day dept.

DW100 (2227906) writes Google has avoided a fine from UK data regulators for its privacy policies that were introduced in 2012. While French and Spanish regulators issued fines of €150,000 and €900,000 respectively, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) appears happy to simply ask Google to change the wording of its policies and make them clearer to users so that they can understand more clearly how their data is being gathered and used by the search giant.

57 comments

  1. Assholes by ehiris · · Score: 1, Interesting

    These people will ruin America as it was envisioned by Ben Franklin and that the Europeans hold dear.

    1. Re: Assholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We Europeans hold America dear? When did I miss that movement?

    2. Re:Assholes by waterbear · · Score: 0

      Not sure who the parent post refers to as 'these people'.

      But the story shows how there is a contrast, in attitudes towards big-business mistreatment of customers, between UK government regulators (easy, cuddly, "just toe the line, will you please Mr Bigco"), and other European organisations (less messing about, more ready to hand out fines for violations).

      Not difficult to see where customers are more likely to be better protected by law.

      -wb-

    3. Re:Assholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      easy, cuddly, "just toe the line, will you please Mr Bigco"

      Or..

      Reasonable request that you adhere to our laws, we are quite happy to fine you, but choose to speak with you first.

      Can't win with morons like you either way.

    4. Re:Assholes by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Not difficult to see where customers are more likely to be better protected by law.

      Also not difficult to see where those customers are more likely to have a job, because their governments are not openly hostile to the businesses that create those jobs.

      Unemployment rate in the UK: 5.6%
      Unemployment rate in France: 10.5%
      Unemployment rate in Spain: 24%

    5. Re:Assholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unemployment rate in Germany 4.9
      UK'er here, remember businesses favour the next quarter report and their own total profits, not the long term or total prosperity levels- so what businesses want and what is good for the economy as a whole are not the same.

  2. Could have been worse by l2718 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People are shocked, shocked! to discover that the email service that makes money by showing them targeted ads based on their messages examines the content of the messages for this purpose.

    I mean, come on: nobody was forced to sign up for gmail.

    1. Re:Could have been worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I just had a Google Buzz account and one day, before I knew what had happened, there it was. I had a GMail account. I didn't want it, but I had it. And suddenly my privacy was no more.

    2. Re:Could have been worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I am so sick of hearing this argument. Google is one the most powerful companies in the world. They've woven their way into all of our lives through buying companies, content, indexing everything we do and put online (gmail or not), and consolidating all of these services under Google accounts. Just like Microsoft, they donate computers to schools that require gmail accounts to even login. So, no, its not necessarily true that you can avoid Google learning about you. And just because their services are "voluntary", does not preclude them from being responsible for conducting their business ethically and being up front with their customers about what their doing with our data.

      Also, since when is Gmail free? My company pays quite a bit for Google Apps. Hell, I had a personal GApps account that was free (grandfather'd in), but after buying a chromebook, I figured out that without all my data in drive, the laptop was useless. Hey, what do you know, their tactics work. So, I pay for my personal gapps as well.

      Additionally, search is something of an essential service for education and access to information. I don't think its really fair to say that "no one is forcing you to use search engines".

      Its a legitimate concern and issue and people who glibly say, "Don't like it, don't use it" are just burying their heads in the sand.

    3. Re:Could have been worse by houghi · · Score: 2

      Nobody is shocked. They just need to change their wording so that what they are doing and what they say they are doing is the same and clear to people. That way they can make a correct decision if they want to sign up or not.

      Compare it with buying a bottle of some drink. You would also want the volume written on it be the same as the volume of what is in the bottle. Not have it say 5L and no sugar while it is a 1L Mountain Dew bottle.

      Laws in Europe can be pretty anal when it comes to being clear to customers. And even then just clicking on OK is not an official contract by any means. It also does not clear you from following the law regarding privacy or any other law.

      Also: the fact that other countries come to a different conclusion is because they have different laws that are even based on different legal principals as a basis.(English and Napoleonic Law).
      For all I know what is legal in the UK is not in other countries.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    4. Re: Could have been worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is worse. Not 3 yrs ago american media attempted to portray itself as contrary to british monarchy politics as viewed against human rights. Today, the only difference I see, as I knew then, is a geopolitical perpective. In fact ,the US, as is that POS google, work so closely together to erode our personal rights as if they all slept together. I despise all three. I hope they collectively burn in hell.

    5. Re: Could have been worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "american media attempted to portray itself as contrary to british monarchy politics as viewed against human rights"

      Eh?

      Your mismatch of federal, state and local laws is an absolute joke. You don't even compete on the same level of freedom as Europe. Doesn't surprise me that your media manipulated shit in such a way.

    6. Re:Could have been worse by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Err, no. Having a Gmail account that you never use, does not dimish your privacy.

    7. Re:Could have been worse by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      What about people who didn't sign up for a Gmail account? Their mail gets scanned when someone with a Gmail account receives it. I wonder if Google creates "shadow profiles" like Facebook does?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Could have been worse by gsslay · · Score: 2

      Except it's not just their messages. It's messages sent to and from others, who didn't sign up for gmail, just corresponded with it.

      And you're at least a decade slow if you think that google is "an email service".

    9. Re:Could have been worse by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      Laws in Europe can be pretty anal when it comes to being clear to customers.

      Given this entire hooha was kicked off by Google redrafting its policies to try and make things clearer and simpler (collapsing hundreds of slightly different policies down to about four or five), this outcome is both dumb and an embarrassment to the UK. The British government runs a massive deficit. Doesn't it have anything better to do with its money than micro-manage the wording of random internet privacy policies? How much do you want to bet it cost the taxpayer to come out with a ruling like "please reword things to be clearer" (instructions which are themselves clear as mud).

    10. Re:Could have been worse by houghi · · Score: 1

      I work at a company where we need to use wording strictly as provided by the law. The reason for this is that the wording over different companies is identical.
      They even tell us what size of font to use and how much white space and other things.

      As a company this pisses me off, as I have do do changes. As a customer I am happy, because it takes away a lot of doubt, especially with other companies who are perhaps not as honest as we are.

      Sure it costs the taxpayer. Nobody is denying that. I am happy to pay that cost as a customer.

      Now given that Google is a marketing company, I will automatically assume that if they change something in their AUP, the wording "to make it easier to understand" is a smokescreen to hide something else or to trample on even more rights. They will NOT do it just to be nice and they were bored one afternoon.
      They do it because they were told to do it. Either by their marketing team or by their lawyers or both.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    11. Re:Could have been worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's one way to look at it. There are other ways to look at it too. People signed up to individual services with terms and conditions designed for the specific areas they operate in. When one company decides to unanimously void all that and merge many different services, then yes they will be open to scrutiny. These terms work both ways, you've just been manipulated and brainwashed to be dominated by business. There is no embarrassment here, you are apparently oblivious to understand these issues. America runs a massive deficit, so what? It has no bearing on this.

    12. Re:Could have been worse by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      People are shocked, shocked! to discover that the email service that makes money by showing them targeted ads based on their messages examines the content of the messages for this purpose.

      I mean, come on: nobody was forced to sign up for gmail.

      What about people who have to talk to people using Gmail?

      Given its popularity, you can avoid using Google products and still have Google have a significant (50-75%) chunk of your email correspondence.

  3. This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We all know how UK love its citizens to be free of surveillance. After all, there is only one surveillance camera for every 11 people in Britain and UK data retention law protects the citizens of abuse.

    1. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You really don't get it and probably never will. Most cameras are private and we're not in an eternal battle against our government that you seem to imagine in the US. So yes, we'll keep our cameras and have low crime rates. Oh and if you want to do business in our country, you will follow the law - I know that's a strange concept to American capitalists.

    2. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh for crying out loud, can't that myth fucking die?

      Even the police suggest its as low as 1.85 million...

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-1...

      So long as you abide by the Data Protection Act, the British Government have no issues with you operating a CCTV camera. Let me repeat that - so long as you abide by the Data Protection Act...

      So, if you follow the rules you are fine. Just as Google would have been if they had followed the rules.

    3. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by zeigerpuppy · · Score: 1

      Except cameras have barely altered crime rates at all. http://www.google.com.au/searc...

    4. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice generic search to throw out there, doesn't show jack shit except some randomly collated links. Every week there are crimes solved thanks to CCTV evidence, nobody needs your bullshit theories.

    5. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only strange concept asshole is how all you dipshit brits still imagine yourselves in king arthur's court. Go f yourself along with your senile queen. You tell that fag prince harry the same.

    6. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aww did someone spit their dummy out. I know you Americans don't have much history but no need to get jelly.

    7. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, we should get rid of all the cameras and give everyone guns instead. That seems to work really well in America.

    8. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. A million times. Grow up, kids: surveillance *works*. Surveillance saves lives. You need more security, not "freedom" you can't even define. Like it or not, individuals are meaningless: you are part of a community and the more rules this community has, the better. You call it "panopticon" or "nanny state" or "big brother" or some other fancy buzzword you don't really know the meaning of. We call it "civilization". "1984" was just a novel. Grow up.

    9. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."

      http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1

    10. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and 15 years ago we used video cassette tapes to watch a movie. Technology, you know, can improve the quality of images - ever heard of High Definition? Jesus, it's like talking to children here.

    11. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by 91degrees · · Score: 2

      There are issues with the ACPO report as well though. Both that what it's counting is misleading, and the methodology only gives us a rough idea.

      The actual estimate of public area CCTV in the UK is around 30,000, but this seems to be extrapolated from Cheshire, which is way too small a sample. They also mention a report from the CCTV user group which gives a similar figure but I can't find how that was arrived at. I get the feeling that these are the cameras people are most concerned about.

      The rest are "quasi-public space" cameras. Which includes hospitals, and I think it includes schools, shopping malls, car parks, and shops. I may be mistaken but I don't think people care so much about these. We rather expect these places to be monitored.

      The problem here is that it isn't clear how the 1.85 million estimate was reached, or, for that matter, the 4.9 million in the most recent survey. Clearly with such wildly differing results we can't shouldn't really accept any of thes figures as anything more than a ballpark figure.

      So basically what I'm saying is that I agree we should be suspiscious of those numbers, but we should apply the same scepticism to ACPO's figures.

    12. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you fix your shit - free speech zones , torture camps, funding of terrorist , drugs groups, The NSA and all the other 3 letter agencies, the lip service to your 'precious' Constitution, guns in school etc and we will fix ours how we chose.

      After all what is it you fuckwits say oh thats right 'My country right or wrong!'

    13. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Oh, so the average Briton is only recorded by CCTV 70 times a day instead of 130 times, that's reassuring. Your article is from 2011, in the mean time costs have come down a lot and more and more individuals are getting CCTV installed. I know, I installed some of it. Individuals are not subject to the same data protection rules, and currently are basically unaccountable unless someone can prove harassment.

      The police are regularly making installing CCTV covering the street outside shops and pubs a condition of getting a licence to sell alcohol too, so a lot of installations have gone in for that. Most installations are several cameras - a convenience store owner I did some work for installs an average of 12 cameras per shop to cover every inch inside, multiple times around the till, in the stock area at the back and two or three outside.

      The driver is the police's lack of interest in crimes where there is no CCTV evidence. They can't be bothered to investigate any more, they just tell people to install CCTV for next time.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    14. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I walked down my street and saw everyone had kids.

      Automatically this must mean every single person on the planet must have kids.
      7 billion humans? Yeah right, try 14 billion.

      The sad thing is my reasoning is better than the reasoning used by those retards that created this STUPID myth.
      Las Vegas alone probably has more cameras than the UK PERIOD when you count all the private cameras like these morons did.

    15. Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll agree, it does give police the opportunity to be lazy and this should never be accepted - all crimes should be investigated. There will always be weird people, who go for overkill, but having 12 cameras instead of one doesn't really make much difference to the people caught on video. Chances are that data will be written over in a day, week or month as the space is needed. I don't really see your point, you can go to New York or Paris and be caught on CCTV the same amount of times as you would in a UK city..

    16. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah look, the condescending British plebian defends his patrician masters. Aint that cute?

      Britiain is a shithole that is run like it is India, with a self imposed caste system where he 'commoners' are treated like secondclass or thirdclass citizens.

    17. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no free speech altogether in Britain, not to mention you have free speech zones too. Quite hypocritical.

      Face it, as bad as America is, and it is quite bad, Britain is even WORSE. In Britain you are still seen as genetically inferior to Lords, Kings, Queens, and Sirs. It is a backwards shithole that should be eradicated from the pages of history really, and most of the degraded British plebian slave caste would be better off for it.

    18. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have ran out of valid arguments pretty quickly, and I can feel the desperation in your incoherent ramblings. Surveillance *works*, period. You're going to see more of it, not less, and you will have to live with it. There has not been, there is not, and there well not be any popular refusal of surveillance. You're a minority, even if a shrill and noisome one, but you will be ignored, as always. There will be more laws, more cameras, more security. Whether you like it or not. Now shut up and let the grownups talk, kid.

    19. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think it works because you come from a place that is known for its antidemocratic and despotic behavior since times immemorial.

      Britain is an Indian-style caste ecosystem composed of nobility and a vast upper slave caste majority that gets treated like shit and put through the meatgrinder. That you are in denial about this shows the degeneration in your genes that make it psychologically and mentally impossible for you to admit just how fucked up you really are.

    20. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not from Britain, although I am from Europe. Nice try, little child, but you failed. Where I live there is no "aristocracy" or other things you know nothing about. We know that life is about compromises and we chose a little more *real* security over some undescribed and meaningless "freedom" we do not care about. Have fun in the land of school shootings. Aren't you ashamed that your views see innocent people lives as expendable because you don't want to give up "rights" civilized people do not need? You should be. Shame on you, stupid little kid.

    21. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well as basically your Constitution and laws are based off ours as long as the bastard child that is the 'shit stained city on the hill' called America is wiped from the history books as well then I think most of the rest of the world would be happy.

      Who is the more delusional? You don't need aristocracy because merkins will bend over and take it up the arse for anyone who has money because of the dream one day I will be the one with the money and YET you still try your hardiest to create one from Celebs , Political clans etc.

      The biggest crime the British Empire ever did was sending those religious whack jobs to your country they should have just towed them out to sea and sank the ship. You might have actually managed a sane culture then.

    22. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever even left your country? Because you sound ridiculously clueless when it comes to other countries. Maybe you should travel (not live, as no one wants you here) to different countries instead of believing what the hyper we-must-always-make-a-story and make it sound as drastic as possible. You have watched far too much Downton Abbey.. it's laughable you compare the UK to India, but I'd actually prefer that to being like the USA.

    23. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'Plebian slave caste' - bit strong old bean coming from a nation who was founded as the worlds peasants cum dumpster!

    24. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by tobenemo32 · · Score: 1

      Who is we? So far we have heard from one of how many citizen of your country? You cannot begin to speak for them all. Surveillance may be something we have to live with, but does not mean we have to like it, or put up with it. One cannot trust to do no wrong. I am sure we can agree on this. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We need not head down that road. We have a choice.

    25. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you should die first useless motherfuckah. eat shit and die.

    26. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Where I live there is no "aristocracy" or other things you know nothing about

      Nigger plz. The "aristocracy"is that goddamned European Union that is ruling over every single facet of your life, you dumb tom-ass nigga.

    27. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another cheeky Britfag.

      How do you love being the Queen's lowly subject you maggot? All the flowery language in the world and word tricks you employ can't change the fact that you are nothing but a pathetic slave that pays taxes to oligarchs, royalty and banks to high heaven.

    28. Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "but a pathetic slave that pays taxes to oligarchs, royalty and banks to high heaven"

      and this is different to America how? I know your society is shit on health care , infrastructure and other civilised stuff because paying tax and having the government do anything for you is 'SOCIALISM!' so you just pay the taxes So the Corporations don't have to .

        Guess what American Idiot Bankers own you they have all the capital.

  4. You missed the big picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everywhere you go, Google maps on your Android device is mapping your location, and the location of Wifi things around you.
    The websites you visit, the videos you watch, the emails you send, the messages you receive, the searches you do, what your voice sounds like, what your phone hears (OK Google?).

    The change in their privacy policy, linked all this information together, and it was presented as 'take it or leave everything Google now', ditch your smartphone, ditch your email, your youtube videos, and even then we'll still track you via profiling your browsers.

    They pretended it was 'simplifying the privacy policy', when actually it linked all the accounts together and authorized massive data mining of that data.

    We signed up to gmail with one privacy policy, youtube with one privacy policy, search with one, android with one, maps with one, latitude with one, and suddenly Google grabbed all the information possible in that policy change.

    So now we're removing Google, one by one, Duckduckgo, by Cyanogenmod, and they can go f*** themselves.

  5. Bing paid fines too.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    upfront - in brown paper bags.

  6. A draft by zeigerpuppy · · Score: 1

    I thought I'd help google out and start redrafting the terms. By signing up for this account you give us the right to all your most personal secrets. If you don't tell us we will work them out. We will sell, share and sit around our big masturbation round table and use your ass as we see fit. If you object we will plant kiddie porn in your account and call our friends at the NSA or DEA or FBI or the local fat cop we bought last year. We will use your aggregate data to control financial markets and influence politicians. We are not evil, we're actually quite cuddly.

  7. Not true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many people have gmail accounts simply to use the Android device. Just because *YOU* do not use it, does not mean it is not used. Your Android device does use that account and Google does use the EULA it got you to agree to when you took that account to take that information.

    So he had a Buzz account one day, and the next a tracking ID (his Gmail account) and a contract giving permission for Google to use it.

    1. Re:Not true by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Right, then your issue is not with Gmail, but with deep Google account integration into Android.

      I happen to agree: I'd far rather my phone be clear about these things.

  8. The recipient is giving the message to Google by l2718 · · Score: 1

    What about people who didn't sign up for a Gmail account? Their mail gets scanned when someone with a Gmail account receives it. I wonder if Google creates "shadow profiles" like Facebook does?

    Suppose you send me a snail-mail letter and my secretary reads it to decide if it deserves my attention. Has your privacy been violated? Suppose I take your letter and put in on the company bulletin board so everyone can read it. It may offend you, it may be socially gauche, but would it be illegal?

    My e-mail secretary is called GMail, and I chose to let it read all my incoming mail. That's between me and Google, and I don't see why you (the sender of my incoming messages) has any right to complain. Moreover, the text of the incoming messages is only used to show me targeted ads, so I really don't see why you should care.

    If (and that's a big if) Google put information from scanned incoming messages into its online profile of you (for ads on non-google websites), then there might be some cause for concern, but that's not what they do, and even if the did I don't see the problem. If you send me a message and I decided to let Google read it then Google should be in the clear..

  9. Tories by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

    In conservative eyes corporations can do no wrong, anything goes, just pay the party, or nudge wink give them a directorship when they leave govt.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.