Online business Toolkit

Story: Search engines race to update privacy policies

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The range of services is the real threat

The growing range of services offered by Google and other search portals poses an increasing threat to privacy. By offering a complete range of services ranging from email, search, calendar, to e-paiement, they can easily build a complete profile of your entire digital life. What is really worrisome is the level of detail of your profile that can be built by correlating the data gathered on an entire suite of services that uses a single user name and password. What is really new here is the simplicity of correlating data, rather than the mere fact that this data exists.

I think it is fair for the EU to place boundaries around what a company may do with private data. In France for example, we follow the very strict privacy law that prevents us from storing any personal information that can be traced back to the individual.

Francois Bourdoncle, CEO, Exalead

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