France’s privacy watchdog hits Google with a €150k fine

9 Jan 2014

France’s data protection regulator CNIL has fined search giant Google €150,000 for ignoring a three-month deadline to align its practice of storing user information with the country’s data law.

In June, CNIL ruled that Google had breached six counts of the country’s data privacy laws.

In particular, it rapped Google for failing to provide sufficient information to users in terms of how their data is used and stored.

The issue harks back to Google’s decision to combine 60 privacy policies into one – applying the same policies across services like YouTube, Gmail, Google+ and many others.

“The company does not sufficiently inform its users about the conditions and purposes of processing personal data,” CNIL said in a statement.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com