Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) on Tuesday released a statement saying he was glad Google decided to answer lawmakers’ questions about the company’s privacy policy update, but that “lingering questions” remained. Further, Stearns said that he wanted Google to take the “next step” and “come in and brief us” on the privacy policy before it goes into effect on March 1.
Stearns, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, was the leading signatory on a letter sent by eight House lawmakers to Google on Friday requesting that the search giant answer 11 in-depth questions about its new privacy policy.
Google responded on Tuesday, saying again that it is implementing the new policy in an effort to “simplify” its user experience across its myriad products. The new policy will combine over 60 separate privacy policies for Google products into one meta-privacy policy.
Here’s Smith’s response to Google’s answers in full:
“I appreciate Google’s quick attention and response to the important questions posed for the company last week. Strong consumer privacy means notice and choice online. I applaud Google’s goal of creating a shorter, simpler privacy policy, as well as its efforts in alerting its users about the change in its privacy policy. This notice is key. However, Google correctly notes in its response that consumer’s ability to opt-out, i.e. consumer choice, is ‘at the heart’ of my concerns. Essentially, it appears that the new policy would allow Google to apply information it collects from a signed-in user to Google Search and YouTube. While Google clarifies in the letter a number of ways consumers can control their privacy settings, oftentimes consumers remain automatically logged-in to Gmail services. I am interested to learn more about how this issue will be addressed. Thus, Google’s response has significantly clarified its new privacy policies but I still have lingering questions remaining. I believe the next step is to have Google come in to brief us on these responses so that we can assure true privacy protections are in place before the new policy goes into affect on March 1st.”
