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European watchdogs order Google to rewrite privacy policy or face legal action

  • UK, Germany and Italy threaten tech company with legal action over 2012 policy which 'violates commitment to transparency'


    Google

Google has been threatened with legal sanctions by European watchdogs over its 2012 privacy policy. Photograph: Martin Keene/PA
Privacy watchdogs in the UK, Germany and Italy have told Google to rewrite its privacy policy in Europe or face legal sanctions, 15 months after the search giant unilaterally altered them to unify data collection.
The move follows similar complaints to the US company last month from the equivalent organisations in France and Spain, and ratchets up the attention over its handling of the huge amounts of personal data that it collects from users every day.
Google has already been censured in Europe over its collection of Wi-Fi data, including usernames, passwords and web page viewing while collecting photos for its Street View system. Both European privacy authorities and US legislators have demanded clarification from the company about the data protection implications of its Google Glass head-mounted system, which can take pictures and video without onlookers knowing. It has also been implicated in a data-sharing row over the NSA's Prism program, which has collected information from a number of US companies including Google, Microsoft and Apple.
Now the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK says that the new privacy policy, introduced in March 2012, raises "serious questions" about compliance with the UK Data Protection Act, and has given Google until 20 September to recast it.
Meanwhile, the head of the powerful equivalent in Hamburg, Professor Johannes Caspar, announced that he will call Google into a legal hearing because the new policy "violates the company's commitment to full transparency about the use and handling of the data".
France and Spain wrote similar letters to the company in June, with France's CNIL threatening fines if it did not comply.
Google said in a statement: "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services. We have engaged fully with the authorities involved throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward."
But a spokesperson did not explain how its policy could simultaneously respect European law and be the target of censure from five European privacy authorities.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: "This is the latest confirmation that consumers are being kept in the dark about what data on us Google collects and how that data is used.
"Google ignored concerns its policy broke the law and put its profit before the legal rights of British citizens.
"The main issue is that sanctions must be strong enough to make Google take real action, rather than the previous meagre penalties that are seen as a cost of doing business. Regulators around the world must act to ensure concrete steps are taken to uphold peoples rights and stop Google routinely trampling on our privacy."
Google said in January 2012 that it would rewrite its privacy policies to unite them across its disparate sites such as YouTube, Maps, Shopping, Mail and Search so that people's data use would be unified. Despite warnings from the CNIL and others that the change might not be lawful, it implemented the change in March 2012.
On Thursday, the ICO said: "we believe that the updated policy does not provide sufficient information to enable UK users of Google's services to understand how their data will be used across all of the company's products. Google must now amend their privacy policy to make it more informative for individual service users."
If Google fails to comply, the ICO says it will be considered in contempt of court. It could then issue an enforcement notice through the courts. In an extreme case it could issue a £500,000 fine – though a spokesperson said it would need to show individuals had been harmed by the policy.
The ICO defended the 15 months it had taken to determine that Google's policy does not comply with privacy laws: "It's not just about examining what is and isn't in the privacy policy itself. It's also about examining what the products and services actually do with the data."

Warren Buffett's Supersized Tax Deduction

Warren Buffett's Supersized Tax Deduction

Warren Buffett speaking to a group of students...
Warren Buffett speaking to a group of students from the Kansas University School of Business (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Warren Buffett is one of the world’s richest and most benevolent men. The uber- billionaire has now donated approximately $2.6 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and four other charities. See Buffett Donates $2.6B In Berkshire HathawayShares. He did it with stock, of course. He handed over stock in his company, Berkshire Hathaway,donating 22,870,529 shares of his class B common stock. At the time of the donation, they were trading at about $115 per share.
According to his filing with the SEC, Buffett converted 14,000 class A shares to 21 million class B shares July 5 to complete the donation. Despite the gift, he is still worth over $59 billion. That is up from $53.5 billion in March, due to appreciating Berkshire Hathaway stock.
The bulk, 17,458,431 shares or about $2 billion, went to the Gates Foundation. The balance was split between the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late wife; and his children’s charities, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.
Famously, Buffett pledged to give away 99% of his fortune. In 2012 he gave $1.5 billion to the Gates Foundation. In the same year he pledged $3 billion of stock to his children’s foundations. According to Forbes, Buffett has donated at least $11.5 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
When someone donates stock, what is the tax effect? The donor gets a charitable contribution deduction based on the fair market value of what is given. Value and basis are different things and that means a big tax advantage.
Mr. Buffett donates at the market value of the shares but doesn’t have to pay income tax on his gain. That makes it far better than selling the stock, paying tax on the gain, and donating the cash. Giving appreciated property is the kind of wise tax planning you would expect from Mr. Buffett.
Facebook FB +3.12%’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg did the same thing in December of 2012. Mr. Zuckerberg donated $500 million of his Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Zuckerberg made his donation in the form of 18 million shares, translating to a $500 million tax deduction. The Facebook IPO price was $38 a share. They price dipped below $20 but then rose by more than 25% by the time of Mr. Zuckerberg’s December 2012 donation.
Donating appreciated stock is a much better tax move than selling it and donating the sales proceeds. By donating the stock, the gain the donor would experience on selling it is never taxed. The donee organization can hold or sell the stock. But since it is a tax-qualified charity, if it sells the stock it pays no tax regardless of how big the gain.
Like Mr. Buffett and Bill Gates, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote that he and his wife Priscilla have signed the Giving Pledge, committing to give away at least half of one’s fortune during his or her lifetime. Big donations yield big tax benefits.
Donations go on Schedule A to Form 1040, so you must itemize. You can only take a deduction for up to 50% of your adjusted gross income for most charitable contributions (30% in some cases). If your donations entitle you to merchandise, goods or services, you can only deduct the amount exceedingthe fair market value of the benefits you received. If you pay $500 for a charity dinner ticket but receive a dinner worth $100, you can deduct $400, not the full $500.
Make sure the donee organization is qualified. You cannot deduct contributions to individuals, political organizations or candidates. The IRS maintains a list of all charities. To check whether particular organizations are on the IRS list, click here. It’s unlikely that any of us will make it to Warren Buffett‘s level. Still, properly planned charitable contributions can be tax efficient and do good works too.

Princess Diana's Hidden Ancestral Secret Revealed

Princess Diana's Hidden Ancestral Secret Revealed

PHOTO: Diana, Princess Of Wales prepares to give her first speech as the Princess of Wales at Cardiff City Hall, Oct. 29, 1981.
Once upon a time, a woman from India named Eliza Kewark was shunned by her family because of her race.
The father of her child referred to her as the "housekeeper" and the "purported mother" of their daughter, Katharine.
Katharine was sent off without her mother to England, and that's where this story might have ended. But Katherine gave birth to Jane, who gave birth to Ruth, who had another Ruth, who had Frances, who had Diana.
As in Princess Diana.
Which means that Great Britain will, one day, have a monarch with Indian blood, and the Commonwealth will be led by a king with a clear genetic link to its most populous nation.
Eliza Kewark is Prince William's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. She has long been described as Armenian, but Kewark was at least half-Indian, the genetic ancestry testing company BritainsDNA announced today.
BritainsDNA says it is confident of Kewark's lineage because it traced Williams' mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, which is passed down from mother to child. BritainsDNA took saliva samples from two unnamed members of the royal family and traced it back seven generations to Kewark, who was born around 1790.
Kewark's mtDNA is so rare, BritainsDNA said, that it has only been found in 14 other people, all but one of whom was Indian (the other one was Nepali).
"It is therefore likely that Prince William has not only inherited a small proportion of Indian DNA from Eliza Kewark but her heirs will also carry it," BritainsDNA said today.
According to the biography "The Real Diana," by Lady Colin Campbell, Kewark's background was known but kept quiet by a family that was full of Europeans descended from royalty.
"Eliza Kewark was a dark-skinned native of Bombay who had lived, without benefit of matrimony, with her great-great-grandfather Theodore Forbes while he worked for the East India Company," "The Real Diana" reads.
"Unsavory as the taint of illegitimacy was, even at that distance in time, it was nothing compared with the stigma of what was then known as 'colored blood.' Had it been generally known that Ruth [Diana's great-grandmother] and her children were part-Indian, they might never have made good marriages.
"Eliza's true race was therefore expunged from the family tree and she reemerged as an Armenian. This fiction was maintained even when Diana married the Prince of Wales."
But times have changed and, today, and the family of Diana, who died in a car accident in 1997, celebrated their Indian heritage.
Mary Roach, Princess Diana's maternal-aunt, told The Times, "I always assumed that I was part-Armenian so I am delighted that I also have an Indian background."
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