The Guardian. Google facing legal threat from six European countries over privacy

Google could face fines from six European countries' privacy regulators, including the UK and Germany, after refusing to reverse changes to its privacy policies made in March 2012.

The search company has infuriated the regulators by declining to respond to their demands made over multiple months – even as research shows that user concerns about online privacy are high.

France's privacy body, CNIL, together with its counterparts in the UK, Netherlands, German, Spain and Italy, said on Tuesday they will take joint legal action involving an investigation and possible fines. The UK's information commissioner's office (ICO) can levy fines of up to £500,000 for breaches of the Data Protection Act. A decision is expected by summer 2013. CNIL could fine it up to €300,000 (£255,000).

However, even both fines added together would be less than Google generates in sales in 10 minutes. Yet the regulators could sue to block Google from operating in Europe – a move that would be highly damaging to its reputation.

Google's rival Facebook has been forced in the past to make a number of changes to its operation to comply with Europe's data protection laws, which are significantly tougher – but more fragmented – than those in the US.

The move comes while European competition regulators are separately trying to decide what action to take to prevent monopoly abuses by Google, which has about 95% of the European search market.

The decision will be the first big challenge for Google's new privacy director, Lawrence You, a software engineer based at Google's Mountain View headquarters in California – replacing London-based Alma Whitten, another engineer who was the first to have the job created in October 2010.