Back in early 2012, Google announced plans to consolidate more than 60 of its individual policies into a main privacy policy. Prior to this change, Google had more than 70 privacy documents covering its different products. However, many users took issue with Google's new policy, which the search giant explained would track users across all of the Google products they used and treat them as a single user.
Following an investigation, the UK's information commissioner has given Google a deadline to improve its privacy policies. Specifically, the ICO believes that the updated policy does not provide Google users with sufficient information to understand how their data will be used and stored across the company's products.
"Google must now amend their privacy policy to make it more informative for individual service users," the ICO said in a statement. "Failure to take the necessary action to improve the policies compliance with the Data Protection Act by 20 September will leave the company open to the possibility of formal enforcement action."
The news follows similar action from France and Spain, and the UK's ICO says it reached its decision after working with the other members of the Article 29 Working Party, made up of the other 27 data protection authorities from across Europe. According to the Guardian newspaper, Germany and Italy have also requested that Google make changes to its policy.