EU Versus Google: A Test Case For The Viability Of A Global Data Protection Policy?

(LONDON) The EU has escalated its existing investigation of Google's global privacy policy, a policy covering all of Google's services that was introduced by Google last year.  Up until April 3, the French data protection authority, CNIL, had effectively been tasked with engaging with Google in an investigation as to whether Google's global privacy policy complies with European data protection laws.  Dissatisfied with Google's response to date, five other data protection authorities from some of the largest EU countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands) are now joining France in a coordinated investigation. (The investigation has of course been covered by multiple news sources.  See, for example The Wall Street Journal article here for more information  — and some pithy reader comments.)