Google finds itself in hot water, yet again. Spain has slapped a fine of $1.23 million (900,000 Euros) on the company for violating the country's data protection law.
Google, the world's largest search giant, is always focusing on all effective ways to grow and connect with its users around the world. But sometimes these efforts backfire and result in attracting hefty fines. The French independent administrative authority, Commission Nationale de l'informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), advised six European countries to open investigations concerning Google's privacy policy, earlier this year. Spain has become the first to demand Google pay a 1.23 million (900,000 Euros) fine for breaching the nation's privacy laws.
"Inspections have shown that Google compiles personal information through close to one hundred services and products it offers in Spain, without providing in many cases the adequate information about the data that is being gathered, why it is gathered and without obtaining the consent of the owners," the Spanish Agency for Data Protection, said in its report, according toReuters.
The investigation was triggered after Google imposed new terms of service on its users concerning all its cloud services including YouTube, Gmail and Google search engine. Google stores all user data on its cloud storage service and not on-site, giving minimal control to users over their data.
Just last month the Dutch Data Protection Authority, after a seven-month long investigation, also declared that Google had been violating the nation's data protection law and France too is close to fining the web giant for its practices.
The investigations are still ongoing in Italy, Germany,the UK, and the Netherlands. These countries are also close to charging the American web giant with fines. But these fines are a mere drop in the vast ocean of the company's profit. The company is worth more than $350 billion.
