Now, Spain's privacy watchdog has fined Google €900000(≈1.23 million) for violating Spanish data protection laws “when combining personal data from its many different online services and failing to inform users clearly on how it uses their data", reuters reported.
The Spanish agency claims Google not only filtered the user's email contents as well as files to display advertisements but also didn't inform users clearly about it, even when it did, the language it used to describe was generic and unclear.
The agency further stated that the Big G collected data for unspecified motives and also kept it for an indefinite period of time.
Google launched its new privacy policy back in March 2012, according to this Google can share user data from one service to another, and the search engine giant stated that this would enhance user experience. But many eyebrows were raised, and many said this would compromise the anonymity of users.
At least 6 European countries started privacy investigation in this matter. Last month Dutch data protection watchdog accused Google of breaking a similar law, and the company is facing sanctions issue in France after it failed to amend its privacy policy. Other countries including Italy, Germany and UK may also fine Google in upcoming months.
Now, if truth to be told, Google made more than $50 billion in revenue last year and has a market capitalization well worth over $350 billion and Google can pay this fine in less than 3 minutes- according to the report of ZDNet.
The company stated that it'll decide the next step only after studying the report and will certainly continue to co-operate with the agency.
It is not a financial blow for Google rather prestige issue. This will not stop right here, be prepared to read this sort of articles in coming days.
Post a Comment