Google Avoids Fine In UK But Will Change Its Privacy Policies

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.

Comments

Assholes

[ehiris]

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

Re: Assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Assholes

[ShanghaiBill]

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%

Could have been worse

[l2718]

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.

Re:Could have been worse

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Could have been worse

[houghi]

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.

Re:Could have been worse

[Wootery]

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

Re:Could have been worse

[AmiMoJo]

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?

Re:Could have been worse

[gsslay]

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".

Re:Could have been worse

[IamTheRealMike]

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).

Re:Could have been worse

[houghi]

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.

Re:Could have been worse

[tlhIngan]

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.

This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[Richard_at_work]

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.

Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[zeigerpuppy]

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

Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[91degrees]

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.

Re:This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re: This coming from UK, it's pure hypocrisy.

[tobenemo32]

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.

A draft

[zeigerpuppy]

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.

The recipient is giving the message to Google

[l2718]

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..

Tories

[MrL0G1C]

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.

Re:Not true

[Wootery]

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.