Google Plans On Meeting French Data Protection Watchdog

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Google Plans On Meeting French Data Protection Watchdog

A French regulation agency wants to talk to Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) about data protection and privacy policy. The Commission Nationale de l’informatique (also known as CNIL) is taking a closer look at Google’s new privacy policy.

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) sent the CNIL a ninety-four page report as a response to their questionnaire. The president for the French regulation agency, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, says that they’re not completely satisfied with Google’s attempt to respond and that’s why they set up this meeting.

The search giant introduced their new unified policy on March 1st 2012.

Google’s new policy combines sixty privacy policies in one. It will also pool user data info from various services including Gmail, YouTube, and Google+.  Users not allowed to opt out either because the search engine giant thinks that this change will better improve the service for all users.

France is not the first country with legitimate concerns about the privacy of their citizens.  The United States, Japan, Argentina, and Canada all brought up their concerns with Google.

Google’s spokesman Anthony House said that his company was more than happy to meet up with the CNIL and that they respect the privacy notices. He also said that the meeting should answer important questions and provide some much-needed perspective on the whole issue.

Later after the meeting ends and they can agree on a full analysis, CNIL can proceed to another meeting with European data protection regulators in June.

Falque-Pierrotin doesn’t know how long this meeting could take, “I don’t have a preconceived notion of whether Google’s privacy policy conforms with European law; we are examining that now.”

Ever since the world wide web first launched to the public, internet privacy has become a hot topic. And now thanks to the large presence of social media, internet privacy is even more of an issue. I’m not to sure about Google’s new privacy policy and I’m even more unsure how they’re going to convince CNIL on why their privacy policy is such a great idea.

UPDATE: According to Update on Reuters, meeting is set for May 23.

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