Google warned to change its user data profiling policies in Germany

Google is in hot water in Germany, with the Hamburg Data Protection Authority warning the company that its user profiling practices violate the Telemedia Act and Federal Data Protection Act. A continuation of the search giant’s ongoing problems in Europe, the German regulatory organization is stating that spreading a person’s information across multiple services such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube is unnecessary and a violation of the country’s privacy laws.

Google may need to amend some of its user data handling policies and will have to clearly explain to its subscribers how their information will be used across its different platforms.

“We ordered Google to achieve unambiguous user consent before combining user data from different services for purposes that are not strictly necessary to deliver the service. In some cases, the implementation of appropriate mechanisms to opt out are sufficient,”Hamburg’s deputy data protection commission, Ulrich Kühn recently told TechCrunch.

It’s unclear how Google will address these concerns, however the company has received negative feedback from several different countries. This could be a sign that it’s time for the tech juggernaut to revise some of its policies on a broader scale.