It may seem that Google is getting too big for its boots with the news that they have been recommended to freeze their privacy policy – apparently what they propose to implement has been classed as ‘illegal’ by the EU, due to its vague wording and lack of transparency.

The French data protection watchdog, CNIL, is reportedly investigating Google’s privacy guidelines that would allow Google to pool data from emails, videos, social networking and other services to track our behaviour and use it to ‘target advertising’.

A spokesperson for Google claim they have taken on board the issues raised by the EU, and have stated they will use the findings to ‘streamline and simplify’ its policies.

It seems that the issue of privacy will always be a contentious issue for users of the internet, with Facebook only recently battling their way out of its user demands for increased protection.

We at Lava have to agree that the creative brains at Google don’t make it as easy as they could to understand privacy information, but Google is a business that needs to work on turning the tide on disappointing revenue figures that didn’t meet Wall Street estimates in the last three months of 2011, ultimately leading to a tumble in Google share prices.

Steph Tod, senior account executive here at Lava, said: “Whilst I think that privacy is an issue that cannot be taken lightly I do think that you are personally responsible for your actions online, so you just need to be careful what you enter and make sure you familiarise yourself with privacy policies.”

Stewart Lyons, account executive here at Lava, said: “I have to admit that privacy information provided by Google isn’t great, with any privacy update being highlighted once with easy dismissal.”

With some pretty strong opinions in the office we all agreed with Nick Pickles at Big Brother Watch, who stated that the reality is Google will soon know more about us than the government; whether that will enhance our user experience or not, only time will tell.