Last week, Google‘s registration process came under fire from consumer rights groups in the European Union, who filed new privacy complaints. The complaint alleges that they intentionally design default settings to mislead new users into allowing the collection and sharing of a wide range of personal information.

These claims are filed under the rules of the EU’s GDPR, a European data privacy regulation that aims to ensure that the personal data of Europeans is not misused. The group notably accuses Google of using ” misleading design, unclear language, and misleading choices ” in its registration process.

COMMENTS ON THE REGISTRATION PROCESS AT GOOGLE

” Contrary to what Google claims about consumer privacy, tens of millions of Europeans were put on the fast track to surveillance when they opened a Google Account,” said Ursula Pachl, Deputy Director of BEUC (European Bureau of Consumers’ Unions).

Indeed, for BEUC and its members, it is far too complicated to personalize their registration, since you have to follow almost 5 steps and click 10 times to enter a manual registration process, supposed to be more transparent with users. on the data they share. However, the information provided as part of this manual registration is unclear, leading consumers to make choices without a transparent understanding of how their data will be processed.

Google is accused of not offering any option to disable tracking as a whole. The entire process is branded as sleazy and opaque and used for purposes that only benefit them. However, they regularly assures that it “protects your privacy “. The American company strongly rejects the accusation that the options presented are unclear, pointing out that they were designed based on extensive research and feedback from website testers.