Google on the hot seat in EU.

• Position: INFO SECURITY - European Union - Brief article

Changes to Google's terms of service have drawn fire from 14 European countries. On Nov. 11, Google started featuring names and photos of users in "shared endorsements," reported PCWorld. Thus, if a user follows a company on Google+, the user's name, photo, and endorsement could show up in the company's advertisements. When users signed up for a Google+ account, however, they were not informed that to use other Google services would mean releasing their information for commercial purposes outside the Google+ environment, according to privacy advocate Simon Davies.

That violates the European data protection law, stated Davies, who filed complaints with the data protection authorities of Norway, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Poland.

"On the basis of my initial assessment it appears that the changes will substantially violate Data Protection law," Davies wrote in the complaint. He requested that the authorities investigate and seek the immediate...