The Nobel Peace Prize-winning European Union has its eyes set on a new regulatory target–Google. Today, French regulators associated with the EU sent Google a letter with an ultimatum: Google has four months to change its privacy policy because of concerns about the way the internet giant collects and holds personal data. The document came with 12 recommendations for Google to bring their privacy policy into compliance with European Union regulations.
One of the primary concerns the regulators shared was Google’s ability to combine anonymous data with Google’s own data to better target advertising. For instance, if there’s a Google map on a page, even if the user isn’t signed into Google services, the data from that page can still be collected by Google. As of now, the EU regulators want google to be more clear with what data is collect, offer an easier method to opt-out of data collection, and to have a clear policy about how long they hold on to personal data before it gets deleted.
However, this is just starting: French regulators say they want to work with Google to implement the recommendations, noting that the aim of the regulation wasn’t to “make war with Google and to stop all innovation.” The disciplinary phase–including fines–starts when and if Google can’t comply within four months.