Yet Another Google Privacy Issue to Put You on a Nerve

Google and privacy are two words that when put together almost never turn out to be good news. To confirm this rule, the American company is under fire once again for privacy violation issues with possible harmful consequences for users. This time, Google is being accused by two advocacy groups of breaking the law by changing its privacy policy without any prior notice and consent from users. Consumer Watchdog and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse exposed a case that has everything to become yet another interesting confrontation featuring one of the world’s most valuable companies. It might result in another couple of months of hard work for its more than 400 lawyers since the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also involved in the situation, obviously opposing Google.

Other cases

We all know how Google likes to constantly keep one eye on its users and how much trouble the company manages to get into somehow. Surely you remember the 2012 United States vs Google Inc. case, when the latter was found guilty of violating its privacy policy (and an FTC’s administrative order from a previous case) for placing ad tracking cookies in the Safari web browser to serve targeted advertisements to Apple users. It resulted in the FTC imposing a fine of $22.5 million, the highest ever on the company. There was also another notorious case when Google was accused of “accidentally” collecting emails and other personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks while driving its vehicles through neighborhoods of over 30 countries to collect photos to build Street View. Also, who doesn’t remember the infamous “right to be forgotten” case? Unfortunately, the list goes on and on…