Google is facing a major legal challenge over its new privacy policy – which allows private data to be shared across all of
its platforms – after the launch of two lawsuits in the US which claim the scheme violates the Internet giant’s earlier
policies.
The company is already under scrutiny at the European Commission, amid claims that the new scheme breaks EU data protection laws. It has also been accused of pandering to advertisers by putting their interests before those of consumers.
The new move sees Google being charged for violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, for wilful interception of communications and aggregation of personal information of its consumers for financial benefit, and the Stored Electronic Communications Act for exceeding its authorized access to consumer communications stored on its systems.
Google is also charged with violation of the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, and other counts including state laws.
The plaintiffs claim Google has not only combined the information across products, but also not provided an easy and efficient way to opt out. “Consumers must manage their privacy settings for each Google product they use; a universal opt-out function is not available,” the complaint said.
The claimants believe the new policy violates consumers’ privacy rights, allowing Google to take information from a consumer’s Gmail or Google+ account and use it in a different context such as to personalise advertisements.
A Google spokesman said: “We have no comment at this time on these lawsuits. We have not yet been served with them.”
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