Europe Privacy Regulators Probe Google: Reports

FRANKFURT –  Six European privacy regulators launched investigations Tuesday into Google Inc.'s handling of personal data, news reports said late Tuesday. The joint probe by regulators in France, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy follows Google's decision in 2012 to change its privacy policy for its services, such as Gmail and YouTube, to allow them to share data, The Wall Street Journal said. A Google spokeswoman told the newspaper that the company's privacy policy "respects European law" and that Google has "engaged fully" with the data-protection agencies over the course of a year-long investigation and will continue to do so. In France, such investigations can lead to fines of as much as 300,000 euros ($385,000) for repeat offenders. In the U.K., fines are capped at 500,000 pounds ($758,000), while the maximum fine in Italy is 1.2 million euros, the Journal said
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