Stephanie Bodoni reports:
Google Inc. (GOOG) was fined 900,000 euros ($1.2 million) by Spain’s data-protection watchdog for illegally collecting and using users’ personal data.
Google is guilty of “three serious violations” of Spanish data-privacy law for collecting personal information across nearly 100 services and products in Spain without in many cases giving details “about what data it collects, what it uses it for and without obtaining a valid consent,” the regulator said in a statement today.
Google was fined 300,000 euros for each of the three violations and ordered to take the “necessary measures without any delay to comply with the legal requirements,” said the authority.
Read more on Bloomberg News.
Of course, the fine is just petty cash to Google. The bigger and more interesting aspect is how they will respond to the order to comply with Spanish privacy law by changing their privacy policy.