Members of the House Energy and Commerce committee grilled Pablo Chavez, Google’s director of public policy, and Google attorney Michael Yang for about two hours. After the meeting, several of the Representatives expressed their unhappiness with Google’s answers on a variety of privacy issues — questions brought on by Google’s recent announcement that it will combine all of its privacy policies into one, which will allow the company to share user information across its services.

That last point, according to Representative Mary Bono Mack, may leave Google in violation of HIPAA, a law that protects how personal health information may be shared. Bono Mack explained her concerns to USA Today:

“…say you do a Google search for cervical cancer and you forget to sign out. Are you being tracked across all of the other products, and if so, that’s a violation of HIPPA. We’ve gone to great lengths in our society to protect people’s medical information. That question was raised.”

Bono Mack is suggesting that Google might be violating HIPAA if it remembers the “cervical cancer” search after the user moves on from search to another Google product, like Gmail or YouTube (or any other).

But is Google actually compelled to follow the HIPAA requirements? According to the Health & Human Services website, the law applies to groups that meet the definition of a “covered entity” — health care providers (like doctors and nurses), health plans (like insurance companies and HMOs) and health care clearinghouses.

Google is certainly not a health care provider or a health plan, but is it a clearinghouse? My non-expert reading of the definition suggests the answer is “no.”

Google has been involved in health information via its Google Health product, but that just shut down on January 1st. Even when it was active, Google said it wasn’t bound by HIPAA. Here’s the opening sentence of the old/current Google Health privacy policy:

Unlike a doctor or health plan, Google Health is not regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that establishes data confidentiality standards for patient health information.

Furthermore, Google’s new privacy policy, which takes effect on March 1st, includes language that seems to say ads won’t be personalized based on health-related activity:

When showing you tailored ads, we will not associate a cookie or anonymous identifier with sensitive categories, such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health.

Bono Mack tells USA Today that there will be more Congressional hearings about online privacy and that she “pressed” Google to be there. But, based on my non-expert reading of the law, the HIPAA angle may not get very far in those hearings.

We’ve been covering the non-search elements of Google’s new privacy policy on our sister site, Marketing Land. See below for several related articles offering background and other angles.

Related Entries

• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check
• Google “Myth Busts” Microsoft’s Privacy Claims
• Microsoft Slams Google Privacy Changes With “Putting People First” Ad Campaign
• Google Tells Congress: Users Can Opt-Out Of New Privacy Policy By Not Logging In
• House Committee Has Privacy Questions For Google; Google Says Bring It On
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?

(Stock image via Shutterstock.com. Used under license.)

The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named “McGeehome,” you’d need to rename that to “McGeehome_nomap.” (And frankly, I’d prefer you use your own last name while you’re at it.)

Google says this method “provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission.” The company is also encouraging other location providers to adopt and respect the _nomap signal in the future.

In its help pages, Google says its system will pick up the new SSID name and process the opt-out the next time your router sends location information to Google’s servers through a reliable channel.

Google’s been in trouble around the world since admitting that its Street View vehicles collected personal information through unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has repeatedly said the data collection was an accident.

This _nomap opt-out method was something that several data protection agencies in Europe requested Google provide to safeguard against similar problems in the future. Google promised an opt-out method in September.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.)

The complaint against Facebook stems from sweeping changes to privacy settings in 2009. Several privacy advocacy groups including EPIC complained to the FTC about Facebook’s actions, which made much of users’ profile data public by default. Those original complaints have culminated in the the pending settlement.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The settlement stems from changes Facebook made to its privacy settings in December 2009 to make aspects of users’ profiles—such as name, picture, city, gender, and friends list—public by default. At the time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described the changes as a “simpler model for privacy control.”

Users complained and several privacy advocates, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed a complaint with the FTC, alleging the changes were unfair and deceptive.

In addition to the privacy audits, according to the New York Times, Facebook would also be prevented from subsequently making public any information that was shared privately, without explicit consent from users.

Facebook has had a relatively cavalier attitude toward privacy in the past. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was famously quoted in January 2010 saying that privacy was “no longer a social norm.” His remarks were widely reported and taken somewhat out of context. However, Zuckerberg’s views on privacy appear to have evolved and he now more readily acknowledges the importance of privacy rather than dismissing it.

Indeed the site has recently taken greater steps to make privacy controls simpler and more obvious — such as implementing in-line privacy tools that offer sharing control over individual pieces of content. And in their recent Charlie Rose interview, Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg spoke extensively about privacy.

Assuming the FTC settlement happens it won’t end Facebook’s privacy problems with the feds, however. EPIC and the ACLU have asked the FTC to investigate Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” capability and Congressional Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Tex.) are asking the FTC to look into Facebook’s use of cookies and tracking of users logged out of the site (which Facebook has said it “fixed.”)

In Europe, which has much stricter privacy rules than the US, Facebook faces a potentially very broad privacy inquiry from the European Commission. Ireland has also separately initiated its own inquiry into alleged Facebook “shadow profiles” of non-users. On the Continent, Germany declared Facebook’s iconic Like buttons illegal forcing their removal from the German internet.

In some sense these privacy investigations signal that Facebook has “arrived” and reflect new and more intense government scrutiny that the 800 million-member network will face going forward. We may thus be at the beginning of what could become a long saga, much in the same way that Google has endured myriad privacy investigations over the past several years, and continues to face them.

Related Entries

• Facebook “Frictionless Sharing” Creating Friction With Privacy Advocates, Regulators
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg To Charlie Rose: “We Just Do One Thing”
• New Facebook Sharing Controls Undermine Google+ Privacy Advantage
• Twenty Year FTC “Privacy Audit” Intended To Punish, Make Example Of Google
• Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button Declared Illegal In Germany

Ixquick says it became the first search engine to offer encrypted search back in 2009. In its announcement, Ixquick notes that the major search engines have recently begun to offer SSL encrypted searching.

Other search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have begun to follow Ixquick’s lead by offering SSL encryption. However, the privacy benefits of using SSL with other major search engines may be misleading, since those search engines themselves record users’ IP address and store extensive records of their searches.

Ixquick also has a sister search engine, Startpage, that’s also encrypting all searches. Startpage’s premise is that it removes all personally identifiable information and then submits the search query to Google, then returns Google’s search results “in total privacy.”

The move means that valuable keyword referral data will not be passed to analytics programs (including Google Analytics) when a logged-in Google user searches from Google.com.

Although Google says the change will impact less than 10 percent of searchers, that’s still a significant amount of keyword referral data that will now be hidden from website owners. Well, it won’t be hidden if those searchers click on one of Google’s ads because, in that case, Google says its advertisers need to be able to “measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.”

In addition to the heated discussion in the comments of our original article, the search marketing industry reacted loudly elsewhere, too. Here’s a sample of what was said.

Tony Verre, on Search Engine Journal: Google Turning the Lights Out on Organic Data

Moreover, those who used analytics just to surmise if people/consumers and how people/consumers found them for something other than BRAND terms, just got a punch in the face [read Mom and Pop shops who can't afford online marketing services and help]. The web might be a key component to survival for them, and taking away accurate data in the name of faux-privacy is a pretty big deal.

Patrick Altoft, on Blogstorm: Google turns off keyword referrer information for logged in users

To me this seems like a move designed both to make Google appear to be protecting users as well as an opportunity for them to take away data that helps big sites build more effective SEO campaigns.

Aaron Bradley, commenting on Google+ in response to my post about the news

I’m a little perplexed that Google has cited privacy concerns with this move. Unless I’m missing something, there’s no way for a Google Analytics user to trace back a referrer to a specific individual whether they’re logged into Google or not. Even with log analysis you’re only going to get an IP, and you’d have to associate that with a user, somehow (and here a logged in Google user would be no different than an anonymous surfer).

Joost de Valk, on SEO Book: Google Whores Out Users With False Privacy Claims

This is what I call hypocrisy at work. Google cares about your privacy, unless they make money on you, then they don’t. The fact is that due to this change, AdWords gets favored over organic results. Once again, Google gets to claim that it cares about your privacy and pulls a major public “stunt”. The issue is, they don’t care about your privacy enough to not give that data to their advertisers.

Alan Bleiweiss, on Search Engine Journal: SEO Under Attack – The Google Analytics Keyword Data Apocalypse

And Google isn’t eliminating ALL keyword data. Only a sub-set. Okay – so if you have a particular site where you know for a fact that the majority of visits come from people signed in to Google, maybe in that particular scenario, you may truly be negatively impacted even from the loss of ability to look at general keyword trends. But how many of you know that’s your particular situation?

Peter Young, on Holistic Search Marketing: The day Google took on SEO, CRO and Analytics

To be honest the fact that its perfectly acceptable for PPC data to be tracked in the same circumstance that Google says it cannot pass organic data through for “privacy purposes” would suggest again this privacy is the least of their concerns. “You can have the data – as long as you pay us” would appear to be the rhetoric here.

Shaun Anderson, on Hobo: Now We Will Need To Pay To See Keyword Referrer Data?

… apparently ADVERTISERS will still get the data through Google Adwords. Hmmm…. so the ‘privacy’ thing is utter bollocks, then. If we pay money we get the data.

Michael Martinez, in comments below on this recap:

It’s funny. You’ll get better data from Google Webmaster Tools’ query report and you can tie that to Google Analytics (or use tools like Keyword Strategy to cull the data) and here people are acting like it’s the end of the SEO keyword research world. Did I dropped from the PANIC MEMO distribution list AGAIN?

That’s just a sample of the reaction we’ve seen over the first few hours since Google’s announcement. No doubt more will be forthcoming, and we’ll update as we hear more. There’s also an active Sphinn discussion with additional opinions about today’s news.

Postscript: See our follow-up piece Google Puts A Price On Privacy.

(Stock image courtesy of Shutterstock. Used under license.)

Google announced the news on its blog here, saying:

As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users.

The company also has a help page providing more information about it here.

Only For Signed-In Users; Single-Digit Impact

The change will only happen on Google.com, and only for those who are already signed in at Google with a secure connection. How many people do this? Google software engineer Matt Cutts, who’s been involved with the privacy changes, wouldn’t give an exact figure but told me he estimated even at full roll-out, this would still be in the single-digit percentages of all Google searchers on Google.com.

Postscript: I keep seeing people question this percentage, since I posted this article, not believing it will be that low. I have double-checked with Cutts on it, and he stands by it. Whether people choose to believe his estimate is another thing, of course.

The change to SSL (which stands for Secure Sockets Layer) begins today and will be fully released to everyone over the coming weeks. When it happens to someone, they’ll see a secure connection icon in their browser (often a little lock symbol) and https:// will appear rather than the usual http:// in front of the web address.

The change means that any searches can only be seen by Google and the web browser itself. A third party can’t intercept the search and know what’s being searched on.

People who administer their own networks have a way to override the default. Google says that’s important for places like schools, where if you’re trying to block porn sites, using encryption makes that impossible. Google’s help page provides more about this here.

Blocking Referrers, The Web’s “Caller ID”

Beyond encrypting search sessions, it’s common that web browsers reports “referrer” data when someone goes from one web site to another. This data tells the destination site how it was found, whether it be from a link off another site or search terms that were entered into a search engine.

To understand more about how referrers work, get used by publishers and information they potentially “leak” out about searches, please see the two posts below from us, which go into great detail about this:

• Google Anonymizing Search Records To Protect Privacy
• The Death Of Web Analytics? An Ode To The Threatened Referrer

In Google’s new system, referrer data will be blocked. This means site owners will begin to lose valuable data that they depend on, to understand how their sites are found through Google. They’ll still be able to tell that someone came from a Google search. They won’t, however, know what that search was.

Analytics: Can Track SEO Generally, Not Specific Terms

Even Google’s own Google Analytics will face this block. Like all analytics tools, it’ll know if someone came from “free” or “organic” search results, also called SEO traffic, but the search terms won’t be associated with a particular visit, because they aren’t being passed along.

From the Google Analytics blog:

When a signed-in user visits your site from an organic Google search, all web analytics services, including Google Analytics, will continue to recognize the visit as Google “organic” search, but will no longer report the query terms that the user searched on to reach your site. Keep in mind that the change will affect only a minority of your traffic. You will continue to see aggregate query data with no change, including visits from users who aren’t signed in and visits from Google “cpc.”

To help you better identify the signed in user organic search visits, we created the token “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting. You will continue to see referrals without any change; only the queries for signed in user visits will be affected. Note that “cpc” paid search data is not affected.

Even though SEO traffic in general can still be tracked, those who are doing conversion analysis down to the keyword level will begin to lose out. You wouldn’t be able to tell, for instance, where someone coming to your site after finding it for a search for “blue widgets” actually entered, nor the other pages they viewed.

Another issue is that landing page targeting gets harder. For example, many have probably been to blogs that might welcome them with messages like:

Hello — I see you came here from Google after searching for “blue widgets.” Here are some stories about that topic you might also be interested in.

Without search terms being passed along, this type of basic targeting can’t happen. It also prevents much more sophisticated targeted from being used.

When I raised this issue with Cutts, he responded that much of this type of targeting gets close to cloaking, where a site might show something special only to Google, especially in hopes of ranking better. That’s against Google’s guidelines.

But Cutts didn’t outright say it was cloaking, nor is it necessarily so. Cloaking is when you do something special for Google; making pages show something different in response to search terms reported by the referrer isn’t special for Google. In fact, if Google visited a site reporting referrer terms, then it would get treated the same.

Debate aside, this type of targeting is clearly going to get harder, at least for those who aren’t running ads. As I’ll get into, referrers from ads aren’t blocked.

Search Terms Still Available In Google Webmaster Central

For some time, Google Webmaster Central has allowed sites to discover the terms that people are using to reach their web sites. This will continue to be offered, and that will remain a welcome alternative to the loss of referrer data. Here’s a past article from us on some of the content that’s offered:

• Google Webmaster Tools Expands Top Search Reports & (Now) Charts

Cutts stressed that Google Webmaster Central shows the top 1,000 queries that a site appeared for at Google — as well as was selected for — over a 30-day period, and that you can even pick any particular day over that period for downloading.

The Google Blog mentions this, as well. The Google Webmaster Central Blog also has a short post up about the change. Google’s clearly sensitive to the fact that publishers all over the web are suddenly going to feel like they’re having information taken away from them by Google.

It is good that the Google Webmaster Central data is there. However, the search data won’t be tied to visitor activity. You’ll be able to tell that someone found your site in various ways, but what they did next — if they converted in some way and so on — won’t be shown.

Perhaps Google might release a way for that data to be merged into Google Analytics. Indeed, I’ve seen some already guessing that Google will do things like this to help support itself. Just two weeks ago, the company rolled out a feature for everyone that integrates Google Webmaster Central data into Google Analytics. See our posts below for more background on this:

• Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics: The Beginning Of A Useful Integration?
• Google Analytics To Add Search Query Data From Webmaster Tools
• Google Analytics Webmaster Tools SEO Reports Now Available

If Google can find a way to do so, without harming the user privacy that it’s trying to protect, that would be great. I can’t say at this time if it would be possible, however. It’s likely very difficult.

It would also be good if Google expanded the 30-day period on Google Webmaster Central, perhaps removing it entirely, so that publishers could go back as far as they like.

Referrers Still Passed For Ads

Referrer blocking won’t be happening with ads. If someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser’s site will continue to receive all the same information it currently gets with unencrypted search.

Why allow this? Google told me it feels advertisers need to have this additional data to evaluate their campaigns. 

From Google’s blog post, it wrote:

Your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.

In talking with Cutts, he stressed that it was important that advertisers know search terms used in relations to their ads for, among other reasons, so they can quickly tell if they’re pulling in traffic for off topic terms.

For example, someone might advertise on “hilton” and suddenly get a lot of traffic for “paris hilton” — knowing the exact terms like this could then allow them to better refine their campaigns.

The problem with this, as I see it, is that this data is already reported to advertisers through the AdWords system. In addition, that data shows up pretty quickly. Within minutes, to my knowledge, you can see exactly the terms that are generating traffic off your ads.

Cutts also argued that it makes sense to share with advertisers using a metaphor of walking around in a mall but not being known. “But as soon as you go into The Gap and actually buy something, then the person gets to know who you are; they can send you a paper catalog.”

I disagree. It’s not like that at all. No one knows who you are when you walk into a store. They only know when you conduct a transaction. Clicking on an ad from Google is a transaction between the searcher and Google, not the searcher and the advertiser. If the searcher converts at the advertiser’s site, then that’s a transaction where actual knowledge of the person might get transmitted.

What advertisers don’t get, if you block the data, is the ability to have customized landing pages as I’ve described earlier. They also lose the ability to do conversion tracking through the site, based on search terms. Both of these are important. But only SEOs are being blocked from this, not those doing CPC paid search. If you pay, you effectively still get to play with that data.

The data also is helpful for retargeting, where someone is shown an ad through the Google ad network based on their initial visit to an advertiser’s web site. Google itself doesn’t allow retargeting to be done using someone’s search history. But because advertisers can see particular terms that people use to reach their sites, they can still use those terms as a way to segment visitors for ads they’ll see later around the web. Here’s more about retargeting:

• How To Maximize SEM Efforts With Search Retargeting
• Keyword Optimization For Retargeting: Why Automation Matters
• The Highs & Lows Of Search Retargeting: Version 3.0 Is Here Already

Half-Full Privacy Change May Look Half Empty

The new referrer blocking change doesn’t just discriminate against the SEO side of the search marketing family. It also sends a terrible signal to consumers. It says that referrer data is important enough to protect, but not important enough when advertiser interests are at stake.

To be fair, Google is concerned that people are more likely to do sensitive searches that somehow reveal private information in referrer data through clicks on its free listings. But this could still happen in relation to ads, as well.

I appreciate that Google’s trying to get the balance right, something Cutts said to me repeatedly, as well as all this being a a first step that will likely evolve. I also appreciate what he said about the change already improving the current state of privacy:

What you’re getting today is better than what you were getting yesterday.

But still, it would seem better if all referrers were blocked. As a marketer, I hate saying that. But as a consumer, it does provide more protection. And for Google, blocking them all doesn’t create this mixed message that might backfire on them with privacy advocates.

Consider that in 2007, before any government seriously pushed on the topic, Google began voluntarily anonymizing some of the search records it maintained. That just got it attacked by some privacy groups and the EU for not doing enough, despite the fact that it was far better privacy than people had it before.

Half measures haven’t helped Google with privacy in the past. This half measure, I think, is likely to blow up in its face. At the very least, consumers should have an option to block all referrers.

Postscript: Google sent me across two links suggesting I’m wrong about this prediction. The first is reaction from the ACLU, which praised the move, even noting that it doesn’t apply to ads but didn’t have anything negative about that. I found that pretty surprising.

Meanwhile, privacy advocate Chris Soghoian, who has been one of the most outspoken people pushing for Google to end referrer sharing, praised the move on Twitter, saying:

Thank you @mattcutts for putting user privacy over the SEO community. Intentional search term leakage via referrer header was inexcusable

Just over a year ago, Soghoian filed an FTC complaint over Google passing along referrer data with search terms. That prompted a class-action lawsuit from another party to follow. I don’t know the current status of either action, at the moment.

Soghoian also praised Google for the move over its rivals:

Google to deploy HTTPS by default for signed in search users. Bing & Yahoo still don’t offer HTTPS even as opt-in option

When I asked Soghoian about leakage related to ads, he said that should be blocked and added that SSL should be made the default for all searches:

Google should scrub all referrers. This is a good start, but not perfect. I try to say nice things when companies deserve it.

 I would also like all Google visitors to get the benefit of SSL & referrer scrubbing, not just single-digit signed in users

Google said the positive reactions from the ACLU and Soghoian are typical of what it is seeing elsewhere, too, including the EFF. I don’t see anything at the EFF site yet.

Postscript 2: The EFF is now up, saying:

Today, Google announced that it is switching its Search service for logged-in users over from insecure HTTP to encrypted HTTPS. This is a significant win for users: HTTPS is an essential protection against surveillance and alteration of your search traffic — whether by governments, companies or hackers …

There is one small caveat that users should be aware of with the new encrypted-when-logged-in Google. If you click on an advertisement, and the advertiser’s website is HTTP rather than HTTPS, Google will send the search terms for that specific query to the advertiser over HTTP.

Wow. Seriously, I’m stunned. The EFF, which pushes for all encrypted communication, doesn’t have a problem with Google leaving a gaping hole in the data it releases?

Of course, blocking referrers isn’t the same as encrypting searches. I guess the EFF considers the encryption portion of what Google has done to be more important.

Google Encrypted Search Ironically Not So Encrypted?

Speaking of half-measures, it turns out that the Google Encrypted Search service that Google launched last year is actually less secure than the new service that’s rolling out by default for signed-in users.

I loved that Google launched that service, just as I’ve loved that it shifted things like Gmail to being encrypted by default and the greater trend that we’ve been seeing where many web sites go encrypted. In an age when people connect through wireless networks with little thought of how they might be monitored, encryption isn’t just nice, it’s essential.

But Google Encrypted Search, as Google told me today, doesn’t block referrer data in the way that the new service does, not if you’re going from one encrypted server to another.

For example, if you used Google Encrypted Search and clicked on a result to come here to Search Engine Land, because we don’t run encryption, the referrer isn’t passed along. But Cutts said that if we did run encryption — or if any site did — they they would get the referrer data passed along.

The new service entirely blocks referrers, at least from non-ad links. It seems like Google Encrypted Search should do the same blocking, and for all links, non just the free ones. If Google’s stepping up the privacy game, then those who are deliberately seeking privacy by using the service should get full protection.

By the way, I’m double-checking on the issue with Google Encrypted Search and referrers still being passed through in the right circumstances, because the help page about the new default SSL search suggests this doesn’t happen.

Postscript: Google has stressed that this is the way the SSL protocol works in general, to preserve referrer information when moving between two https servers and not any attempt by the company to make Google Encrypted Search somehow less secure. I’d still say that if the new SSL search is going above-and-beyond by blocking some referrers, then Google Encrypted Search should do the same.

Don’t Panic — But Yes, Search Referrers Are Dying

This change is, according to Google, only going to impact a tiny number of those searching — a single-digit percentage, as I’ve said. Anyone not signed in to Google will still send referrer data with search terms in them.

This means there will still be plenty of data to sample, even by SEOs, for doing conversion analysis down to the search term level. There will still be plenty of landing page opportunities. There’s still plenty of direct data through your own analytics on how people are finding you.

It also means, in the short term, that Bing can continue to sample Google’s data in a way that Google dislikes.

By the future is clear. Referrer data is going away from search engines, and likely from other web sites, too. It’s somewhat amazing that we’ve had it last this long, and it will be painful to see that specific, valuable data disappear.

But from a consumer perspective, it’s also a better thing to do. As so much more moves online, referrers can easily leak out the location of things like private photos. Google’s move is part of a trend of blocking that already started and ultimately may move into the browsers themselves.

Overall, I can appreciate Google making the change to default secure searching. But making that change with a big hole opened, if you’re willing to pay for ads, isn’t right.

Postscript: See our follow-up pieces:

• Reactions Come Loud, Fast & Often Angry To Google’s Switch To Encrypted Search
• Google Puts A Price On Privacy

In practice frictionless sharing means that once you authorize an app, your subsequent actions through that app are shared on your news feed or the new Ticker. This includes songs you listen to, news stories you read, movies you watch and so on. Some people have likened it to the return of Facebook’s controversial Beacon tracking feature.

Spotify, one of the Open Graph launch partners, has reportedly had to modify settings and create a “private listening” mode in response to early complaints from Facebook users.

Now Facebook faces a range of complaints that the site is being too aggressive in monitoring, tracking and broadcasting user activities. Privacy advocates EPIC, the ACLU and others have requested the FTC to investigate “frictionless sharing.” Simultaneously, Congressional Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Tex.) are asking the FTC to look into Facebook’s use of cookies and tracking of users logged out of the site.

Facebook has said it “fixed” the cookies issue. But Facebook’s larger privacy problems with the US (and EU) are really just beginning. While the FTC has declined to indicate whether it will begin a formal investigation that process has started in Europe.

ZDNet reports that Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner will conduct a sweeping privacy inquiry into Facebook. While this is the broadest formal investigation of Facebook undertaken to date, there have been other government actions against Facebook in the past in Europe — most recently Germany declared the Like button illegal. Given Facebook’s size and influence it’s a relatively safe bet that Facebook will ultimately be compelled to offer more privacy discloses and more granular control over sharing.

Facebook is accustomed to this privacy-backlash routine: it introduces a new capability or feature, users complain and it modifies the feature. It’s a kind of “beg for forgiveness” approach. But this time may be different. There may be fines and broader changes required of the company by regulators in Europe, which is likely to come down much harder than US authorities.

The investigations are really just starting. It’s a bit premature to predict outcomes, except the latest round of complaints are more serious and going to cause a bigger headache for Facebook.

As part of the agreement, Google has made its analytics opt-out browser plugin available to Safari and Opera users — it was previously available for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Google will also recognize an IP masking tool that prevents Analytics from storing the complete IP addresses of Internet users in Europe. Google has also updated its Terms Of Service for Google Analytics to reflect the new agreement.

In a German language blog post, Google also asks website owners to use their privacy policies to tell site visitors that the site uses Google Analytics, and to inform them about the browser add-on.

In that blog post, Google says it disagrees with Hamburg officials who say that Google Analytics violates data protection laws.

Johannes Caspar, data protection commissioner in Hamburg, has been quoted saying, “We are at the end of a long but constructive discussion process. I explicitly welcome that Google has said it will implement the changes Europe-wide.”

Caspar first raised concerns about Google Analytics and privacy in 2009.

(Thx to State of Search for the tip.)

In a blog post yesterday, Google says the opt-out will be available to people around the world.

Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google’s location services. Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.

Google has been in hot water for about 18 months now, since the first revelation that the company’s Street View vehicles had been collecting personal information over unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has insisted that the data was collected accidentally, but that hasn’t stopped some governments — particularly in Europe — from demanding increased privacy measures from Google. Many countries have determined that Google broke local privacy laws, but only one — France — has so far issued a financial penalty.

Google says the opt-out service will be available later this fall.

Earlier this year in March we wrote about a new principle being developed in Spain and Europe: “the right to be forgotten.” Specifically a Spanish court is asking Google to remove data about roughly 90 private individuals from its index. For various reasons these people have filed complaints with the Spanish Data Protection Agency asking that information about them be extracted from the index.

Google is fighting the case and these requests; their implications are quite sweeping.

The government of Spain backs the notion of a right to be forgotten. There are also pan-European regulations, along the same lines, that will be introduced later this year according to an article in the New York Times. Quoting Georgetown law professor Franz Werro, the piece discusses how privacy law is going in very different directions in Europe and the US:

[I]n the United States, Mr. Werro said, courts have consistently found that the right to publish the truth about someone’s past supersedes any right to privacy. Europeans, he said, see things differently: “In Europe you don’t have the right to say anything about anybody, even if it is true.”

Also cited in the article are the results of an EU poll that shows most Europeans support the concept of a “right to be forgotten”:

Three out of four [Europeans] said they were worried about how Internet companies used their information and wanted the right to delete personal data at any time. Ninety percent wanted the European Union to take action on the right to be forgotten.

Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer has blogged at length about why he believes a “right to be forgotten” is misguided. Typically the disputed information is contained in third party sites and publications (e.g., newspaper articles, Wikipedia). Do individuals then have the right to pull those publications’ pages down? What process would balance those competing interests?

I suspect the regulatory and procedural challenges surrounding implementation of a right to be forgotten won’t change any minds in Europe. Spanish and European regulators will likely require removal of personal information from search indexes after some yet-to-be-defined process. We’ll see exactly what that looks like later this year, after the Spanish case proceeds to conclusion and the EU introduces the intended rules.

It’s a safe bet, however, that while privacy remains a strong concern of Americans, even teens and young adults, nothing like a right to be forgotten will make its way over here, given the current state of First Amendment law.

Stock image from Shutterstock, used under license.

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