Japan cautions Google about personal data

The Japanese government will ask the Japanese unit of Google Inc. Wednesday in writing to handle personal data carefully under the U.S. Internet giant's new privacy policy to be introduced Thursday amid widespread fears that personal data could be easily exploited, Japan's (Kyodo) news agency quoted sources close to the matter as saying. The new privacy policy will bring together personal data collected from Google's more than 60 search engines, e-mails and other services, giving Google unilateral control of all data about the company's service users, which critics fear could lead to a serious infringement of privacy. The Japanese government's move follows a request the European Union made earlier for Google to postpone introducing the new policy.