HYDERABAD: Internet giant Google had a rough ride in Europe few years ago with various countries pointing out that its privacy policy was too vague and raised concerns about data protection.
The European Union told Google in no uncertain terms that it should change its privacy policy amid concerns over the way it gathers, protects and uses information about users.
According to G. Srinivas Reddy, visiting faculty on cyber security at JNTU-Hyderabad, privacy is given high importance in the West, but in India most of us are not concerned.
Tech companies being taken to court for alleged breach of laws is common in Europe.
India lacks awareness, say experts
​Tech companies being taken to court for alleged breach of laws is common in Europe, but very rarely seen in India because of ‘nil’ awareness levels.
Subramanyam Lakshminarayan from Cloud4C explained that Indian privacy laws are not stringent and not enforced properly and hence people are taken for a ride.
Experts say that it is possible to opt out of targeted ads by adjusting preferences, but there is no way to opt out of a privacy policy altogether.
“If we take the case of Google, all your activity across Google-owned services including Google Maps, YouTube, Google Docs, Gmail, Hangouts, Picasa and many other services will be tracked.”
