BEC高级阅读：欧洲六国对谷歌采取联合行动

　　Europe's largest data-protection authorities have launched a joint action against Google to force it to remedy alleged breaches of EU privacy rules by the search giant.

　　欧洲几个大国的数据保护主管部门发起针对谷歌(Google)的联合行动，要求该搜索巨擘就所谓违反欧盟隐私规则的行为采取补救措施。

　　The move by data-protection authorities from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands is the first co-ordinated and formal procedure by EU states against a single company on privacy, underscoring European frustration with Google.

　　由英国、德国、法国、意大利、西班牙以及荷兰数据保护主管部门发起的这一行动，是欧盟国家首次在隐私问题上对一家公司协同启动正式程序。这件事突显出欧洲方面对谷歌的不满。

　　European watchdogs can currently impose only fines below ?1m but new EU-wide rules could soon empower them to inflict on companies penalties up to 2 per cent of their global annual turnover.

　　欧洲监管机构目前只能开出不到100万欧元的罚单。不过，覆盖整个欧盟的新规则，可能很快就会使它们有权对企业作出相当于其2%全球年营业额的处罚。

　　In Google's case that would add up to about $760m, based on its 2011 revenues. The new rules could be approved by the end of this year by EU lawmakers and member states.

　　就谷歌而言，这意味着按该公司2011年的营收计算，它可能将面对高达7.60亿美元的罚单。新规有望在今年年底之前获得欧盟立法机构和各成员国的批准。

　　The move comes five months after a probe led byCNIL, the French watchdog representing EU regulators, concluded that Google had failed to give users adequate information about how their personal data were being used across its multiple platforms.

　　5个月前，由法国监管机构“国家信息与自由委员会”(CNIL)代表欧盟监管机构牵头展开的一项调查得出结论称，谷歌未能向用户提供充分信息、以让他们了解自己的个人数据在谷歌的多个平台之间如何被使用。

　　Google responded that its privacy policy respected European law. "We have engaged fully with the data-protection authorities involved throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward," it said in a statement.

　　谷歌的回应是，其隐私政策是尊重欧洲法律的。“我们在整个过程中全面配合相关数据保护主管部门的工作，并将继续这么做，”该公司在一份声明中表示。

　　The Mountain View-based group has faced intense criticism for its privacy policy since it first moved to merge customer data held across its various services such as Gmail and YouTube, which alone holds the data of more than 1bn users.

　　总部位于加利福尼亚的谷歌，自开始合并多项服务(如电子邮件Gmail和视频网站YouTube)的客户数据以来，其隐私政策就一直受到强烈批评。仅YouTube就拥有逾10亿用户的数据。

　　The US group said its new privacy terms, which combine 60 former policies into one for all its customers, would allow it to provide a better service. Google Now, which provides intuitive updates based on calendar entries, location patterns and e-mails, is one example of a service making use of the new approach.

　　这家美国集团称，其新版隐私条款将以前的60项政策整合为一项面向所有客户的政策，使其能够提供更好的服务。基于日历条目、位置规律和电子邮件内容提供智能信息提示的Google Now，就是使用这种新政策的服务之一。

　　The case is being closely watched by several US tech companies and in particular Microsoft, which is currently being investigated by European regulators on issues relating to its online services.

　　谷歌一案受到数家美国科技公司的密切关注，尤其是微软(Microsoft)。微软正受到欧洲监管机构的调查，因为它以类似于谷歌的方式修改了隐私政策。