Google's repsonse

Google has responsed to the written letter from the EU commissioning group concerning its privacy policy. Google raised concerns over its habit of keeping user's data (search patterns, ...) for more than 2 years.

The answer was good, as Google admitted that their policy was vague (from BBC):

1. When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

2. We may also share information with third parties in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal process, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services.

The first one is OK, as it does not reveal anything about Google's policy. The second point is however, more important. So as the matter of fact, it does share our data to third parties. Google spokeman explained later that those parties are mostly the polices.

On one hand, it sounds reasonable. After all, Google can't not facilitate and allow crimes to thrives. Should they had done that, they wouldn't have survived in America. And don't tell me that you can easily get billions of dollars from online services/advertising from anywhere else like Asian or Europe.

On the other hand, it raises questions over freedom of speech and censorship. The worse news is that, your emails (which is supposed to be private) can also be censored. Even though we are facing the fact that there is no such thing in a centralized network like Google, we still expect some level of it. Google has been known of censoring search data in China. Not until all users being aware of such problems or actually experiencing it, does it matter become more serious. Most users in Asia (China) wouldn't be very happy with it. And can Google risk loosing that many users?