February 19, 2013
Google could face some repressive action before the month of June if it doesn't respond to a dozen recommendations related to how it manages user data, specifically in European countries.
For one, France's privacy watchdog said that the company had yet to respond with precise and effective answers to a dozen recommendations unanimously adopted by twenty-seven national regulators in October 2012 and as a result could face a coordinated constrainment.
The Article 29 Working Party, a group of data protection officials from each member states, is expected to vote on the proposal next week.
"European data protection authorities have noted that Google didn't provide any precise or effective answers to their recommendations," the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL), the organization that has aggressively led the probe against Google, said in a statement.
"In that context, the EU data protection authorities are committed to act and continue their investigations. Therefore, they propose to set up a working group, lead by the CNIL, in order to coordinate their repressive action which should take place before the summer," the CNIL said.
For its part, Google denied that its privacy policy was in any violation of EU law. "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services," Google said in a statement. "We have engaged fully with the CNIL throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward."
Saying that Google wasn't in compliance with European law, the group suggested that the company should strengthen the consent sought for combining data for the purposes of service improvement and advertising; provide a centralized opt-out solution; and adapt the combination rules to distinguish between security and advertising.
Google was also warned about not clarifying how long it stores user data. After issuing its recommendations in October, regulators gave Google four months to amend its privacy policy to address issues that could violate member countries' laws.
In fact, Google raised the ire of privacy advocates in January 2012 when it did a privacy policy rewrite that would grant it explicit rights to "combine personal information" across multiple products and services.
The simplified privacy policy, which would replace no less than sixty other privacy policies for different services, would only improve the "user experience", Google argued.
Opponents of the change sued, saying that the decision was designed to increase the company's advertising effectiveness. EU officials asked that Google delay implementing its new policy until the privacy implications can be analyzed, but the company declined, saying it had extensively pre-briefed privacy regulators on the changes and that no objections were raised at the time.
In other hi tec news
The Pew Research Center published a new report that suggests Facebook tiredness may be setting in with some users, and that the social site appears to be waning and dropping in popularity.
No less than 27.2 percent of Facebook users surveyed in the United States plan to spend less time on the site this year, compared with only three percent who plan to spend more time, according to the research firm.
And another 69 percent of Facebook users say they plan to spend the same amount of time on the site in 2013. The Pew study also reveals that 61.4 percent of Facebook users have taken a break from the service for several weeks or more.
But during these breaks, the vast majority of Facebook vacationers don't delete their profiles, they simply don't visit it during that sabbatical.
Facebook boasts that it has more than a billion active users. Pew found that about 68 percent of American adults who are online use Facebook every now and then.
The reasons people gave for taking a break from the network were diverse. The most common reason was not having enough time for the site, with 21 percent of people saying they were just too busy with real-life responsibilities, their careers, their family lives or other important matters to spend time reading posts, liking and commenting.
Other motivations for leaving-- about 10.8 percent called it a complete waste of time, another 10.3 percent cited a lack of interest in the content, and 9.1 percent said they were unhappy with the amount of drama and gossip on the site.
About 4 percent of users mentioned privacy and security concerns as their reason for taking some time off. Among the comments from those who took Facebook breaks-- "I was tired of stupid comments." "I had crazy friends. I did not want to be contacted." "I took a break when it got boring." "It was not getting me anywhere." "You get burned out on it after a while."
And Pew was quick to point out that not everyone who leaves Facebook comes back to the social site. According to Pew, about 19 percent of online adults who currently don't use Facebook formerly maintained a profile on the site. The number of Facebook users in the U.S. is plateauing, as only 7.9 percent of non-users said they would be interested in perhaps joining.
Facebook needs to keep its users active on the site and mobile apps, especially since the pool of untapped of potential new members in the U.S. is dwindling.
If Facebook starts to feel stale, more of its active users could take longer breaks or leave altogether, like they did with such formerly hot social networks as Friendster and MySpace.
Source: The Article 29 Working Party.
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