Google and Privacy - update

The other day on July 4, 2008 I posted about the sweeping production and disclosure order in Viacom v Google that was issued by a US Court.

Today, Ontario's Privacy Commissioner, the redoutable Ann Cavoukian, challenged Google to appeal this order.

This case will clearly focus again on why Google and YouTube and others retain personal data for so long - i.e. 18 months. And that's down from two years.

The EU is clearly concerned about search engine data retention policies.

The EU seems to be heading strongly to a six month maximum retention period based on this April report.

PS - David Fraser, a Canadian East Coast lawyer, has a thoughtful blog on this available here.

HK