Reding attacks Google’s privacy policy

European commissioner says new privacy rules violate EU data-protection provisions.

Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, has criticised Google over its new privacy policy, which took effect yesterday (1 March).

She said that the new rules were not transparent and called on the company to suspend their application, backing a call earlier this week by France’s data-protection.

Reding backed France’s national commission on information technology and liberties (CNIL) in its finding that Google’s new privacy policy “does not meet the requirements of the European directive on data protection”.

The CNIL wrote to Google on Monday (27 February) to convey its concerns, following a preliminary analysis that it had undertaken on behalf of the EU’s national data-protection authorities. It also announced that it would launch a full investigation.

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Google rejected the CNIL’s call to delay the introduction of the new policy, which replaces dozens of separate privacy policies for its various services with just two – one for YouTube, a video-sharing site, and one for all other services, including Gmail (an email service) and its search engine.

Google’s search engine is the subject of a separate anti-trust investigation by the European Commission, the results of which are expected later this month.