A report commissioned by the Belgian privacy commission has found that American companies are violating the European law, despite updating their privacy policy. Conducted by the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT at the University of Leuven in Belgium, the report claimed that Google and Facebook's privacy policy updates were not "drastic" but instead clarified what they have been doing, and are still violating European consumer protection law.
The report that was written by academics from the University of Leuven, said the changes .
On Tuesday, February 24th, 2015, Europe's Günther Oettinger, a German politician and a member of the Christian Democratic Union, warned both American companies, and stated that the U.S. technology giants are exploiting legal weaknesses in Europe to gather and sell individuals' personal data.
Both companies do not sell data of individuals. Google and Facebook were putting it clear that they don't. But despite that fact, both do use targeted advertising to make money. And to make attempt successful, they have to target advertising using detailed information they get from their users.
And since both companies have many other services other than what they're known for (Google for search engine, and Facebook for social media), they can collect more information from them. The report also said that their "data-processing capabilities have increased both horizontally and vertically.” the report said. These pose more concerns because the companies vast advertising network can collect data from both users and non-users.
Europe has already had deep concerns regarding protecting its citizen's privacy against U.S. tech companies. And for that the European Union is preparing a key decision in which is meant to reshape its digital sector for a long term against U.S. tech companies.
In a speech in Brussels, Oettinger that is a representative to the European Commisions, the EU's executive arms, said that Europe should counter the dominance of U.S. internet companies by creating a set of rules to govern data protection, copyright and other similar issues.
"The Americans are in the lead, they'’ve got the data, the business models and so the power," he said.
According to the report, the companies' policies around profiling for third-party advertising do not "meet the requirements for legally valid consent". Since Google and Facebook have become large, they are becoming a place where it puts much burden to their users. When users are expected to navigate within their sites, they have complex settings that searching for a specific thing is difficult. This causes problematic to those that want to opt-out from certain services and tracking.
"Users are offered no choice whatsoever with regard to their appearance in 'sponsored stories' or the sharing of location data," wrote the authors, stating that "users do not receive adequate information" to help them know what choices are available.
Google and Facebook that both have their European headquarters in Ireland, "will go to the member states where data protection is least developed, come along with their electronic vacuum cleaner, take it to California and sell it for money," Oettinger continued. "We need one European data-protection law."
Because the report was written by academics and has no legal power, the European governments are currently completing an EU-wide data-privacy law that poses a tougher restrictions on how technology companies, especially those that are owned by foreign countries, in using personal data from its citizens.
Data privacy plays a larger role and debated more often in Europe that than in the U.S., especially since the widespread of internet surveillance programs conducted by the U.S were revealed by Edward Snowden.
Furthermore, speaking to The Wall Street Journal in January 2015, Oettinger said that the EU might impose taxes on U.S. internet companies as part of that plan.
The European Commission is deciding its formal charges against Google for allegedly abusing its dominance of online search in Europe, where its market share exceeds 90 percent. The domination of Google means that "“the Americans have been able to define quite a number of different rules."
“We've got to ensure that our economy stays on board," he said.
