EU Probes Google Over Privacy Concerns

An independent European Commission has started investigating whether Googles Internet search engine, to comply with European privacy rules.

EU spokesman Peter petrucci said Friday that 28 members of the panel recommended the European Commission and EU governments on data protection issues, Googles hope that the companys practice of handling, storage and Users retain the information for up to two years.

"This group dealt with a letter to Google to raise a number of issues," petrucci added that the EU Justice Commissioner Frattini as a shield and an investigation .

"He believes that these problems put forward the letter to be appropriate and legitimate," petrucci said.

Peter Fleischer, Googles global privacy lawyer said, the company did a lot of work in order to protect personal information collected from users of its search engine.

"We believe its an important part of our commitment to respect the privacy of users, taking into account a number of important factors, such as security and prevent fraud and abuse," Fleischer said. He added that Google is "committed to a constructive dialogue." Google said it will answer the EUs privacy issues, in the next Panel meeting in the end of June.

The European Union made the following recent actions, and in the United States, a consumer group asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, Googles privacy protection, the companys proposed acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick Inc.

EU officials said that they had sent a letter to Google last week to ask whether the California-based company has "fulfilled all the necessary requirements," and to comply with EU data protection rules, which generally have strict, than those sold in the United States. Officials said the European Commission also asked to provide information on how to maintain the Google user data.

Fleischer said that Google needs to log details of users to search for security purposes - for the sake of the protection of its search engine, from hacker attacks. But he said the company has recently taken measures to improve the users privacy. Server logs, for instance, is "anonymous", 18 to 24 months.

"We are the worlds only major search company to take this step is open to the public," he said.