Google has triggered outrage by pressing ahead with a new system that will invade the privacy of millions of computer users — and may even be illegal.
The technology giant on Thursday put into place fresh rules that allow it to monitor much more information about our Internet use.
It can analyse the use of YouTube, social network sites and is even able to search personal email exchanges for key words.
Crucially, the new rules allow it for the first time to then combine that data to build an ever- more intricate picture of personal habits. The rules will permit private data to be shared between Googleowned services such as Gmail, YouTube or its Google+ social networking site.
Only those who use a Google account to access the services will be affected. Those who use Google simply as a search engine will not. Users can opt out of the new policy only by cancelling their account.
Once Google has harvested the data, it will use it to boost advertising income by allowing companies to target account holders with marketing tailored to their interests.
Privacy campaigners say the ability to spy on computer users without their explicit permission goes too far. The EU has set up a committee of data protection watchdogs from across the continent to investigate the privacy issues.
And it has tasked France’s data protection watchdog — CNIL — to look at the Google case. Significantly, it has cast doubt on the legality and fairness of the new policy.
CNIL told Google in a letter dated February 27: “ The CNIL and EU data authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services: they have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing.” Despite this warning, Google went ahead with the changes.
The tussle over data privacy comes at a delicate time for Google. It is already being investigated by authorities in both the EU and US over whether it favours its own products in its search results.
EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said European authorities believe Google is breaking the law “ in numerous respects” with its new privacy policy.
“ One is that nobody had been consulted, it is not in accordance with the law on transparency and it utilises the data of private persons in order to hand it over to third parties, which is not what the users have agreed to,” she told BBC Radio.
But Peter Barron, of Google, said the changes represent a simplification of its security policies, bringing them down from 60 to one.
“ We announced in January that these changes were coming, and since then we have carried out a huge notification programme, including an email to every Google account holder,” he said.
Q&A
HOW WILL IT WORK?
Google will pull together personal information on its users based on what they search for on the web, what videos they view on YouTube, what topics they discuss on its networking site Google+, and keywords in emails they send via the Gmail system. This information will be ‘ aggregated’ in an anonymous personal dossier.
CAN I STOP IT?
Not if you’re a registered user of Gmail, Google+, YouTube, or other Google products.
It is possible to minimise the data gathered by, for example, making sure you are not logged in when using its search engine or watching a YouTube video.
IS IT LEGAL?
EU believes the system could be illegal. Google disputes this and has rebuffed pleas to delay the changes.