Google has been targeted by a French consumer group and its peers with a new series of privacy complaints, according to reports. In addition to the French consumer group, others in Greece, the Czech Republic, Norway and Slovenia have taken their complaints to their data protection authorities, European consumer organisation BEUC said.
It said the issue was Google's account sign-up process.Registration process
‘Registration process misleading’
While consumer agencies in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden had written to their privacy regulators alerting them about Google's practices, the German consumer body had sent a warning letter to Google that could lead to a civil lawsuit.
"The language Google uses at every step of the registration process is unclear, incomplete, and misleading," the group said.
"Google also frames the more privacy-friendly options as missing out on advantages. This prevents the consumer from taking an informed decision when they make their choices and results in unfair, non-transparent and unlawful processing of their personal data," it added.
In previous privacy complaints, Google has said users can edit, delete or pause settings and that it also make clear to users that it collects their data to improve their services.
According to a Reuters report, Google, which has been penalised more than 8 billion euros ($8.4 billion) by EU antitrust regulators, could face fines of up to 2 per cent of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching EU privacy rules.