European Union officials have asked Google to refrain from implementing its plans to share user information across all of its services until the privacy implications can be analysed, but Google is standing its ground.
In a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Article 29 working group of EU advisers on data protection issues, said: "We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these [EU] citizens in a co-ordinated procedure," the Financial Times reported on Friday.
The working group has asked French data protection watchdog CNIL to lead the investigation, the letter said.
But Google is not backing down on its policy modification, which was announced last week and is due to go into effect on March 1. In a letter sent to Kohnstamm on Friday, Google Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer wrote that the company is "happy to discuss this further" if the CNIL requests a meeting.
For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see EU officials want Google to suspend privacy policy change on CNET News.
