Google’s Undertaking With UK’s ICO May Result In Privacy Policy Changes

Google has signed an Undertaking with the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO") in which it agrees to amend certain aspects of its 2012 Privacy Policy. The content of the undertaking is interesting, as it provides a guide to the sort of safeguards that privacy regulators now expect to see in privacy policies released by data rich businesses.

One Policy

Google's 2012 Privacy Policy consolidated approximately 70 different privacy policies which had, until March 2012, existed across the range of services offered by Google. The 2012 Privacy Policy applied to most of Google's product and service offerings. Unlike the previous privacy policies, the 2012 Privacy Policy was designed to allow Google to combine or pool data collected across all its products and services. In practice, this meant that personal data which was collected through YouTube, for example, could be combined with personal data collected from Google search.