In what seems like an endless list of demands by government agencies in Europe, Google is going to have to make even more adjustments to their privacy policy practices. This time, Germany’s data-protection regulator, Johannes Casper, is telling Google that they need to update and limit how they use the data gathered from all their web properties.
This is because Casper suggested that in its current state, Google is able to “compile detailed movement patterns, detect the social and financial status, and friendships, sexual orientation and the relationship status,” and end up learning too much about each user.
As these and other limitations are put in place regarding the privacy policy and how the data collected can be used, it will restrict how well Google can target their ads. This is, of course, the primary way Google makes money, so these restrictions can have some pretty severe consequences for the search company.
Of course, any marketers who are promoting products in Germany or other European countries will also end up having lower quality ads displayed. This can cause a lot of problems for marketers and brands alike who are trying to bring in new customers using any of Google’s advertising programs.
Most other ad networks use similar data, though gathered differently, so this requirement could have impacts on how any ad network that does business in Germany will be able to target their ads.
