<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Google has today gone ahead with its controversial new privacy policy, despite the European Union warning that it may be in violation of European law.  The US internet search giant has rolled out changes to the way it manages information on Google Accounts, enabling personal data to be shared more easily across all of its services, including Gmail, YouTube and social network Google+. Google says that the update brings together more than 60 different privacy policies into a single approach which will allow it to tailor search results better, but campaign groups feel that this comes at the expense of freedom and privacy. France&amp;#039;s privacy watchdog CNIL wrote to Google earlier this week calling for a &amp;quot;pause&amp;quot; in the revised policy.  &amp;quot;The CNIL and EU data authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services,&amp;quot; it said. &amp;quot;They have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing, and its compliance with European data protection legislation.&amp;quot; The Article 29 Working Party, a group of data protection authorities from EU member countries, has also called for the new policy to be halted while regulators &amp;quot;check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of citizens&amp;quot;. However, Google has rejected all requests to delay the changes, instead shifting all users over to the new single policy at midnight on March 1, regardless of whether they chose to opt in or not.  Google makes the majority of its money by selling adverts targeted to user behaviour, but previously this data was kept separate across its services. But now searches on YouTube could affect the advertising users are served with on Gmail, and vice versa. The same is true for all other Google services, and the change is compulsory for all users.      Bloggers and tech experts have been offering advice for people concerned about their privacy, including the deletion of browsing and search history via google.com/history. Users can view which Google services hold data about them by viewing their dashboard. Speaking on BBC Radio 4 today, Google&amp;#039;s Peter Barron also said that users can &amp;quot;opt out all together&amp;quot; of the new privacy policy by simply using Google&amp;#039;s search page without signing in to any of its services. Google launched a campaign to make people aware of the changes to its privacy policy, but a survey conducted by campaign group Big Brother Watch this week indicated that only 12% of UK Google users had actually read the policy. The poll of more than 2,000 people, conducted by YouGov, also revealed that less than half of UK users were even aware that the changes were going ahead. &amp;quot;The impact of Google&amp;#039;s new policy cannot be understated, but the public are in the dark about what the changes actually mean,&amp;quot; said Nick Pickles, the director of Big Brother Watch. &amp;quot;Companies should not be allowed to bury in legal jargon and vague statements how they may monitor what we do online, where we use our phones and even listen to what we say in calls.&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;This change isn&amp;#039;t about Google collecting more data, it&amp;#039;s about letting the company combine what&amp;#039;s in your emails with the videos you watch and the things you search for. &amp;quot;If people don&amp;#039;t understand what is happening to their personal information, how can they make an informed choice about using a service? Google is putting advertisers&amp;#039; interests before user privacy and should not be rushing ahead before the public understand what the changes will mean.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/internet/news/a368673/google-implements-new-privacy-policy-despite-eu-concerns/>