Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, PRIVACY NEWS: Attorneys general praise Google privacy changes, but call for more, (Jul 8, 2013)

By Tobias J. Gillett, J.D., LL.M.

The attorneys general of 23 states sent a letter on July 3 to Google CEO Larry Page, expressing their approval of certain changes Google has made to its privacy practices, but articulating their continued concern regarding aspects of those practices. The communication follows up a February 22, 2012 letter, voicing the “strong concerns” the attorneys general had regarding Google’s unified privacy policy.

According to the July 3 letter, the unified privacy policy, “implemented without a meaningful opportunity for Google users to opt out,” imposed a privacy regime under which the information consumers provided to one Google product could be used with all other Google products without specific consent. The letter states that the attorneys general are encouraged by three changes Google has made: “improved consumer education about managing privacy on Google, improved notice of and access to existing Google privacy controls, and implementation of a new Google privacy tool.”

Consumer education. With respect to consumer education, the letter notes that Google responded to the attorney generals’ concerns by providing information on “how to use multiple Google accounts to keep different aspects of one’s life separate,” and on “signing out of Google accounts altogether, to reduce unwanted data collection.” However, the letter suggests that “more needs to be done to make information about data collection and other privacy concerns readily accessible to consumers.”

Improved access to privacy controls. The letter also observes that Google responded to concerns about the difficulty of accessing Google’s existing privacy controls. Google “has redesigned its ‘Accounts’ page to more clearly highlight privacy controls like Dashboard and to better enable consumers to manage their connected accounts and their traceable Web history”; “has improved the visibility of the ‘Accounts’ page for consumers creating new Google accounts by modifying its account creation user interface”; and “has redesigned its ‘Policies & Principles’ page” to provide a single page explaining Google’s privacy controls and providing links to Google’s consumer education materials. However, the letter contends that Google must still do more to make privacy controls and materials accessible and intuitive to consumers.

New privacy controls. Google has responded to the concerns of the attorneys general regarding “opaque data collection and analytics” by introducing a new privacy tool called “Account Activity Report” that displays information Google has collected about consumers through various Google products, and provides links to privacy controls associated with the products. The letter notes that the tools is still in a beta version, and needs improvements concerning the data it displays, the visibility of the privacy controls, and consumers’ awareness of the tool, but that the report is “a valuable resource.”

The letter concludes by stating that the attorneys general remain “greatly concerned about the ways in which Google collects consumer information.” They contend that Google should provide more transparency, and should provide consumers with a greater ability to “review and delete data that has been collected about them.”

“In the interim, we will continue to closely monitor Google’s activities related to consumer privacy,” the letter states. “Online technology is constantly evolving, and innovation is welcomed, but innovation should not come at the expense of consumer protection.”

The letter expresses the views of the attorneys general of the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.

News: Privacy