Google Is Being Forced To Publish This Statement On Its Front Page In France Right Now

Google

For the next six months or so, Google's homepage in France will contain this ugly statement (in French) in a big gray box where its precious white space used to be:

Statement: the Restricted National Commission on Information and Freedom has fined Google €150 000 euro fine for breaches of the "Freedoms" law. The decision can be seen at the following address: http://www.cnil.fr/linstitution/missions/sanctionner/Google/

French authorities have required the statement because Google fell afoul of regulators in Europe. Each country has different information and privacy laws - with France's often being the most strict - but Google had attempted to introduce a single privacy standard for all its users, globally, in 2012. PC Mag reports:

Google unveiled a universal privacy policy across all of its services in 2012, designed to address how the company uses and shares user data across all of its various platforms. A coordinated action by European regulators from various countries found that this new privacy policy violated European privacy law. Regulators asked Google to make changes; Google seemingly did not. Therefore, various countries have taken it upon themselves to take Google to task for violation of their individual data protection laws.

Google is appealing the decision but is being required to maintain the notice on its front page while the appeals process plays out.