German privacy regulator orders Google to limit its use of customers’ data

Chris O’Brien reports:

Google lost another battle on the European regulatory front today when a German privacy commissioner ordered the Silicon Valley search giant to implement strict new controls on how it uses customers’ data.

The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information had originally ordered the changes last fall following an investigation launched earlier in 2014. Google filed an appeal of that decision, but the commissioner, while making some small modifications, overruled the objections and fundamentally upheld the previous decision.