Privacy officials from ten countries have sent Google a letter demanding that the company giant build more privacy protections into its services. The letter, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, was signed by officials in Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK. The signatories could not be reached for comment. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the content of the letter saying, "We have discussed all these issues publicly many times before and have nothing to add to the letter." The letter comes as the company is preparing to share information on 20 April about the number of requests it receives from foreign governments, an announcement it says it has been planning for many months. The missive scolds Google for what it describes as a range of privacy abuses, ranging from inadequate protections in its social-networking service Buzz to its procedures for retaining images it gathers for its Street View mapping services. It calls on Google to create "privacy-protective" default settings and make it easy for people to delete their accounts, among other measures.
