The reason? To provide time for the EU’s Article 29 Working Party, which regulates data protection issues, to investigate possible user privacy and data protection concerns.

A Google spokesperson told WebProNews:

We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any DPA that has questions. As part of announcing our new privacy policy, we’ve made the largest communication to users in our history. Delaying the new policy would cause significant confusion.

Google has sent a letter back to CNIL, indicating that it has no intentions of pausing its rollout. The letter, for the most part, reads almost exactly like the company’s recent letter to congress. At the end, Google says:

Your letter has requested a pause while the Article 29 Working Party checks the possible consequences of the changes for our users. You letter states that this in in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitment to information rights of their users and EU citizens.

As you will know, we had extensively pre-briefed data protection authorities across the EU prior to the launch of our notification to users on 24 January 2012. At no stage did any EU regulator suggest that any sort of pause would be appropriate. Since we finished these extensive briefings, We have notified over 350 million Google account holders, as well as providing highly visible notices to all our non-authenticated users. In addition, the policy does not come into effect until 1 March 2012, as we wanted to leave more than adequate time for our users to be able to read and understand the policy before it’s fully implemented.

Google’s changes are scheduled to take effect on March 1.

Now the European Union has asked for a pause in the rollout of Google’s privacy policy changes. France’s National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, CNIL, has requested that Google delay the changes, which are scheduled to go into effect March 1. The delay would provide time for the European Union’s Article 29 Working Party, which is tasked with regulating data protection issues, to investigate possible user privacy and data protection concerns.

I contacted a Google spokesperson about the issue, and here’s what he had to say:

We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any DPA that has questions. As part of announcing our new privacy policy, we’ve made the largest communication to users in our history. Delaying the new policy would cause significant confusion.

What do you think? Is Google right to refuse to delay the changes? Is this controversy really much ado about nothing? Sound off in the comments.

On his Web site, Kader Arif posted a statement titled, “ACTA: A masquerade I will not attend.” The original statement was in French and there is no official English translation yet so please forgive any errors presented in Google Translate.

I want to denounce as the greatest of all the process that led to the signing of this agreement: no association of civil society, lack of transparency from the beginning of negotiations, successive postponements of the signing of the text without any explanation being given, setting aside the claims of the European Parliament, however, expressed in several resolutions of our Assembly.

He then goes on to say that the right-winged members of parliament imposed an accelerated schedule to ACTA to pass the agreement as fast as possible before the public was alerted.

He then lists the many problems with ACTA: the impact on civil liberties, responsibilities it imposes on ISPs, impact on the manufacture of generic drugs and the lack of protection it offers to GIs.

He then says that he will be resigning his post in what he calls a “charade.”

This agreement may have a major impact on the lives of our citizens, and yet everything is done for the European Parliament to have no say. So today, in submitting this report in my charge, I would send a strong signal and alert the public about this unacceptable situation. I will not participate in this charade.

ACTA is now in the public sphere of debate and it’s causing an uproar. Expect more stories like this and more protests from various groups. We’ll keep you up to date on any changes.

On Monday, Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales tweeted:

And the people maintaining the German-language Wikipedia page made good on the promise:

The German Wikipedia wasn’t by any means alone, though. Other large language Wikipedias – those featured around the main logo on Wikipedia’s homepage – also demonstrated their support:

Wikipedia Spanish.

Wikipedia Polish.

Wikipedia Chinese (the second image is the translated banner since it was less obvious).

Wikipedia Portuguese.

Wikipedia Russian.

Wikipedia Japanese.

Wikipedia Italian anted up big time on their support and actually threw in a complete splash page denouncing SOPA (you can still access the site once you click through it).

Okay, so with the English page completely shut down, that’s all ten languages featured on Wikipedia’s homepage and ten pages standing in solidarity with… er. Wait. That’s only nine. I only counted nine. Who are we missing here? Let’s check the list.

…..France.

Sigh. Uh, hey France? Nous devons parler.

Aix-en-Provence is just north of Marseilles, on the southern coast of France. The store there will be the second Apple Store in France. The first is under the giant glass pyramid in the Louvre in Paris. The store could be complete as early as the end of 2012, or the end of 2013 at the latest.

[Source: Aix en Dialogue]

Now, a court has ordered Google France to pay €50,000 (about $65,000) over a search suggestion for a query for an insurance company called Lyonnaise de Garantie. Google apparently suggested the word “escroc” as an addition to the query. The word means crook. French news site The Local reports:

A Paris court held that the addition of the offending word “was offensive towards the company.” The court said that Google should be able to exercise “human control” over the functioning of words suggested by its search engine.

Google said the auto-complete functionality was not the “expression of a human thought”, an “opinion” or a “value judgement or criticism” but was the result of its automatic algorithm.

Google explains how the feature works in a help center article:

As you type, Google’s algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities. In addition, if you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you may see search queries from relevant searches that you’ve done in the past. All of the predicted queries that are shown in the drop-down list have been typed previously by Google users.

Predicted queries are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. The autocomplete data is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries.

Google does have what it refers to as a “narrow set of removal policies” in place for porn, violence, hate speech, and terms that are frequently used to find content that infringes upon copyrights.

The suggestion appears to have been removed.

France’s broadcasting regulation organization, the CSA, has banned the casual use of the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” on the air. The just issued decree cites an article from another decree issued in 1992.

Paris-based writer Matthew Fraser notes that “the French are notorious for their obsession with maddening, micro-meddling rules and regulations,” and that the country is “infamous for its oppressive bureaucratic culture of legalistic codes and decrees. The term ‘French bureaucracy’ is shorthand for the worst imaginable Kafkaesque nightmare.”

Well, this kind of proves that.

The only time radio or television broadcasters can say “Facebook” or “Twitter” now is if the two companies make the news. For example, “Social Network Facebook involved in scandal” would technically be permitted. But things like “Follow us on Twitter” are strictly prohibited. This new regulation takes away a powerful tool that news organizations uses to connect with viewers.

Imagine if the FCC told CNN that they couldn’t ask users to follow them on Twitter? They would go absolutely berserk. But according to Fraser, this new regulation came and went with little media coverage or outrage, save a few French bloggers.

What is the reasoning behind this seemingly ridiculous new regulation? A CSA spokesperson had this to say:

Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition,” she said. “This would be a distortion of competition. If we allow Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box — other social networks will complain to us saying, ‘why not us?

So it’s about fairness? Neutrality in journalism? Money?

Facebook and Twitter are so much a part of everyday life around the world, that it seems disingenuous to say that other lesser social networks deserve equal mention. They simply aren’t as important, and therefore aren’t discussed nearly as much. In order for a news organization to ask viewers to “like” them on Facebook, should they also be forced to tell viewers to follow them on MySpace? It’s ludicrous.

Fraser has a different explanation, one that the CSA would obviously never cop to:

But there is another, more plausible, explanation. Facebook and Twitter are, of course, American social networks. In France, they are regarded — at least implicitly — as symbols of Anglo-Saxon global dominance — along with Apple, MTV, McDonald’s, Hollywood, Disneyland, and other cultural juggernauts. That there is a deeply-rooted animosity in the French psyche towards Anglo-Saxon cultural domination cannot be disputed; indeed, it has been documented and analysed for decades. Sometimes this cultural resentment finds expression in French regulations and laws, frequently described, and often denounced, by foreigners as protectionism.

Yeah, I guess Americans do give the French a pretty hard time sometimes. And I can understand a little bit of hostility towards American cultural intrusion. But banning “Facebook” and “Twitter?” That’s just burying your head in the sand.

Whether or not that’s a significant amount may be a matter of some debate.  Consider that Google has a market cap of about $186 billion at the moment, and regularly indulges in odd habits like buying large statues of desserts.  A sum of $142,000 won’t be missed by anyone other than the internal accountants who are tasked with keeping track of such things.

On the other hand, the head of the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertes, Yann Padova, told the AFP, “It is a record fine since we obtained the power in 2004 to impose financial sanctions in 2004,” so French authorities weren’t trying to let Google off with just a word of caution.

This move could set a precedent in other countries, as well, since regulators there might not want to appear soft and permissive when it comes to violations of their citizens’ privacy.

Anyway, Google’s now received permission to delete the data it collected in France, so the matter should be resolved in that particular nation.

Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, also added, “As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks.”

Granted, in objective financial terms, that wouldn’t mean much to Google, which has a market cap of about $191 billion. The bigger problems would be the PR blow and the precedent this ruling would establish.

The AFP article that broke the story (at least in English) explained, “The appeal court action pitted Google France and Google Inc. on one side against film producers Mondovino, a photographer and some documentary makers. . . . The complainants argued that their works were appearing on line, via the Google search engine and sometimes directly on Google Video, despite their demands that such material be withdrawn.”

So a loss here means Google is supposed to be more vigilant than ever in terms of censoring search results and monitoring uploads, which could leave the company open to more lawsuits in the future.

Google may appeal the ruling and hope for a more favorable decision next time, though.

The $600,000 is supposed to be hit Google in addition to legal costs, by the way, giving the company even more incentive to have its lawyers try again.

The Autorite de la Concurrence observed in a statement that, with respect to advertising, "many elements converge in order to indicate that Google holds a dominant position . . . market share, price level, nature of customers relations, margin level, etc.  The entry barriers also appear to be high when it comes to developing an activity as a competing search engine, because of the investments at stake for the development of the algorithms and indexing of content, as well as due to the size effect."

But the next paragraph is what Google’s execs and lawyers will celebrate: "In and end of itself, this dominant position is not reprehensible: it results from a great deal of innovation, supported by significant and continuous investments.  Only the abusive exercise of such market power could be sanctioned."

What’s more, after outlining a few procedures it has problems with, the organization said, "[T]he Autorit makes no ruling as to the legality of such practices that would merit, in order to be pursued, often long and complex investigations."

So it seems that the Autorite de la Concurrence is just going to use this opportunity to apply pressure to Google, and will otherwise do little besides keep an eye on the search giant.

The Autorite de la Concurrence’s English statement and further analysis in French is available here if you’re interested.