Internet privacy concerns cause very public row in Brussels

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2008

BRUSSELS (AFP) — Cyber big brothers or friendly providers of targeted information? European parliamentarians have found themselves at odds with Internet giants such as Google on the thorny issue of online privacy.

Google criticised MEPs and rights advocates this week for seeking to have competition authorities consider the privacy aspects of its 3.1 billion dollar takeover bid for online advertising giant DoubleClick.

The row dominated a public hearing of the European parliament's Civil Liberties Committee on the Internet's impact on individual privacy on Monday.

Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer accused the European parliamentarians of seeking "to take a privacy case and shoehorn it into a competition law review."

Sophie In 't Veld,...