EU orders Google to seek user permission before profiling them

The Hamburg Data Protection Authority in Germany has warned Google to curb its profiling activities in the country or risk facing fines or other measures. In a statement yesterday, the organization said Google’s ability to piece together information about users across the breadth of its services violates local privacy laws.

Amid growing pressure for Google to bring itself more in line with European privacy laws, a German regulator has ordered Google to seek user permission before profiling them across its services. The Hamburg commissioner of data protection and freedom of information on Tuesday raised the prospect of fines for Google if it doesn’t make major changes to the way it processes user data in the country. “Google is ordered to take the necessary technical and organisational measures to guarantee that their users can decide on their own if and to what [extent] their data is used for profiling,” the regulator said in a statement.