DATA PROTECTION : FRENCH AUTHORITY CONCERNED ABOUT GOOGLE'S NEW RULES.

The search engine giant Google put its new confidentiality rules into practice, on 1 March. The French data protection authority, the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertes (CNIL), mandated by its European counterparts to assess these new rules, had nevertheless asked it to postpone their introduction in a letter sent on 27 February. The new rules are not in conformity with the requirements set out in Directive 95/46/EC on data protection.

More specifically, the CNIL finds that Google does not give enough information to the persons concerned. "The fact that Google informs users about what it will not do with the data is not sufficient," reads the letter. The authority also criticises the lack of transparency and states very clearly that the "CNIL and EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services: they have strong doubts about...