“Enterprise data policies have typically assumed that vendors are not saving personal information unless there is some sort of opt-in policy,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. “In particular, the argument that data capture ‘doesn’t hurt anyone’ is a red herring compared to the actual requirement for governance.”
However, while Google’s defense focuses on its own practices, the outcome of the case could drive the industry toward better transparency and accountability.
“Google obviously has to defend its actions and perspective, but my hope is that this finding leads to greater transparency,” Park added. “Obviously, one of the challenges of any complex data service, such as Google or Microsoft or Amazon, is the complexity of governance and administration associated with the data environment and the complicity of tracking the data and activity associated with any sort of service.”
