CNET: Privacy group steps up Gmail complaints

This time privacy advocates got specific, lodging multiple privacy complaints against Google's new Gmail service in the E.U.'s current 15 state divisions as well as the sovereign nations of Australia and Canada. The London-based Privacy International group noted that E.U. law - mandatorily adopted by member governments - requires that data cannot be stored longer than necessary and that email monitoring can be allowed only in limited conditions. Google, of course, could argue that its Gmail service isn't keeping the email any longer than necessary, as it is the email account holders themselves who may choose whether or not to delete files.

Australia and Canada are so far the only other countries that have also adopted the E.U. approach to privacy regulation, having done so in order to prevent communication and business breakdowns threatened by the E.U. when they initiated the law. The U.S. has not done so, but it has negotiated an agreement whereby companies needing to deal with European concerns over privacy can sign a voluntary agreement that opens them up to government regulation.