CDD Praises EU Action on Google Privacy: Time for US companies to stop stealing other peoples' data

Global consumers, including in the U.S., should be grateful that a joint legal action by 6 European privacy regulators against Google seeks to protect their privacy.   France, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Spain are the Data Protection authorities involved.
 
The EU sets the global standard for protecting privacy, defining the rights of the public to determine how their information can be collected and used.   EU data regulators have been willing to say--long before the U.S.--that the myriad of methods used to collect personal information on individuals include cookies and other so-called persistent identifiers, for example.  European views on privacy has been formed after the bitter experience of people suffering through totalitarian regimes--including the use of surveillance technologies.  The announced new legal effort will help address Google's 2012 decision to change its privacy policy so it could better harvest and analyze the data it holds on users.
 
The U.S. continues to be a laggard on privacy.  Perhaps that's because one of America's few growth industries is stealing other peoples' data (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc).  The success of the U.S.-led online marketing industry helping collect data on consumers throughout the world is a major reason why the Obama Administration and U.S. companies are lobbying to weaken the proposed new EU Data Protection law.  Imagine the audacity of the EU.   No profiling of a individual without consent.  Yet that provision is one major reason why Google, Facebook and others are working to weaken--or kill--the proposed law.
 
Google, like others, is expanding cross-platform tracking (and just made an announcement for a product helping others do so).  The new EU action promises to bring Google and others out of the digital shadows, so the public better understands how databrokers operate in the digital era.