• On February 24, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) lawsuit to compel the FTC to enforce the Google consent order prior to March 1, 2012, the date on which Google implemented the announced consolidation of its privacy policies. The court dismissed the suit on the ground that the “decision to enforce the Consent Order is committed to agency discretion and is not subject to judicial review.” The court expressly acknowledged, however, that it was not reaching the merits of “whether the new policies would violate the consent order or if they would be contrary to any other legal requirements.” The opinion goes on to state that “the FTC, which has advised the Court that the matter is under review, may ultimately decide to institute an enforcement action.” EPIC has appealed the district court’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The district court’s opinion is available here.
  • On March 1, 2012, Google’s new privacy policy went into effect. The new terms and conditions consolidate more than 70 policies across Google’s products, resulting in one profile for users rather than separate logs for services like YouTube, Search, Google+, and Blogger. Lawmakers and privacy regulators in both the United States and the European Union have expressed concern over the new changes. The FTC has advised the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where it had been sued to enforce a prior consent order with Google, that Google’s new privacy policy is “under review.” Also, according to the European Union’s Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, there remain “questions about the policy’s compliance with EU data protection rules.”

The French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) has sent a letter to Google warning that its “preliminary analysis shows that Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection.” Google has nonetheless maintained that it is “confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles.” The CNIL letter to Google is available here.