nugg.ad Awarded EuroPriSe Privacy Seal For Data Protection

On the heals of the EU Google hoopla around privacy, it seems rather timely nugg.adnow has their own shiny seal of approval. The targeting provider has been awarded the European privacy seal, EuroPriSe, for their predictive behavioural targeting technology product PTN 2.1. This makes nugg.ad currently the only targeting provider in Europe to hold the independently issued privacy seal.

EuroPriSe is an initiative of the ULD, the independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein, led by Dr. Thilo Weichert. The EuroPriSe seal is designed in light of the current political debate in Europe regarding the redesign of data protection. The process of recertification was sought by nugg.ad proactively.

“I am delighted that nugg.ad is the first provider to meet our transitional rules for behavioural targeting. This is a necessary step which hopefully will give the industry new impetus for greater transparency and user control,” says Dr. Thilo Weichert, Data Protection Commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, and Director of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection.

Building on their Opt-Out function released in 2009, nugg.ad recently released My Topic Monitor where users can inform themselves about targeting and Opt In or Out and see what nugg.ad predicts as their interests.

nugg.ad states they ensure that at all times the privacy of users is compliant with European law. All data is processed at German data centres in compliance with the appropriate legal framework. The lifetime of user cookies is limited to six months and is stored in the browser of the users device; where the user can delete it at any time.

The German Perspective On The New Google Privacy Rules (as reported by Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung)

Despite all the loud criticism of the new transparency rules in both Europe and the USA. What data does Google actually collect? And what disturbs privacy advocates?

Google does not log every search. The changes primarily affect users who have a Google account, Gmail users and smartphone and tablet owners using the Android operating system. The office software Google Docs and Google's online network Google + are connected to a large data silo. Why compile all their data? The company cites two reasons. First, it hopes that profiling users will improve its products. For example, when a user searches for restaurants in Munich, in the future he will not only be presented with the results of the search, but possibly photos from his Google + of his contacts in the Bavarian capital.

Secondly, the company intends to tailor its ads more to the individual. Personalized advertising is very lucrative. Does this new set of rules apply for all Google services? No, some of its products are excluded. For example, the Google checkout service is subject to specific conditions governing the handling of financial data.

So what bothers privacy advocates? The French Data Protection Commission (CNIL), which on behalf of their European colleagues is looking into the case, see the new rules as a violation of European data protection directive. The privacy advocates complain that the declaration was too general -- that Google must provide additional information about what happens in each service.

"Our preliminary investigation shows that it is extremely difficult to figure out what data is exchanged between which services for which purposes,” CNIL released in a statement. Google’s privacy declaration is full of soft turns, 15 times the word "may" was used before a specific statement. How do they justify this murkiness? The Internet giant stressed they would give users control and transparency.

What's next? Privacy advocates and politicians are not satisfied with the current declaration and want a new one. It’s not only in Europe where resistance is stirring: in Google’s own homeland the U.S., which is not known for it’s rigid privacy laws, Congress and several states attorneys are demanding answers.

Collusion: The Poor Man's Ghostery

Looks like Mozilla, the people's champion of privacy (unofficial title), is looking to simplify the functionality of the Ghostery tool by providing a visual of all the third party tags "tracking" you.

“We are being watched. It’s now time for us to watch the watchers,” said Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs in introducing the tool at TED last week.

From what I've seen of the tool, it doesn't really do all that much more than Ghostery. Still it's good for users to get some insight into how data is being collected. But it does make you wonder if Mozilla is questioning its own moral standing when handing over search data to Google (Firefox renewed its search deal with Google late last year). It's amazing what $900 million can do in that particular scenario.