US lawmakers question Google over privacy policies

Tue, 2012-01-31 09:24 - By

Digital Media, Media, Edward Markey, Federal Trade Commission, Google, Google privacy concerns, Joe Barton

U.S. lawmakers have asked the Federal Trade Commission whether changes to Google's privacy policy violate terms of a 20-year settlement the company reached with the agency last year. Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton have called on the agency “to investigate whether Google’s proposed changes violate” a settlement made in March. At the time, the FTC claimed that the search-engine used deceptive practices and violated its own privacy guidelines.

Last week, Google announced that it would create a uniform set of privacy guidelines for more than 60 products. “This new policy would allow Google to follow the activities of users across nearly all its services, including Gmail, Google Search, Google+ and YouTube,” Markey and Barton said in a letter to the FTC. “This new policy and omission of a consumer opt-out option on a product- by-product basis raises a number of important privacy concerns."