After having been accused, and in some instances charged, for disregarding the privacy of its users, Google and Facebook are now showing signs of having changed their attitude and policies on this matter.  Along with eBay, Dailymotion, Yahoo et al, all gathered under an organization entitled ASIC. The  ASIC will file a complaint against the French State Council and its ruling on preserving connection data of users for 12 months and hand it over to French authorities if requested as part of an investigation.

According to the decree, connection data includes full names, associated postal address, pseudonyms, associated email addresses, telephone number, passwords and data used to check or modify them. Benoit Tabaka, the head of ASIC, not only considers the decree issued in March to disregard the users’ privacy, but considers the involvement of the European Commission as imperative since ASIC members have businesses established in several European countries. Tabaka also states that it is impossible for companies to comply with the regulation as at the moment these companies do not store the passwords in full.

Funnily, it was France pointing at Google and fining it for collecting unauthorized Wi-Fi data via Google Latitude, consisting of e-mail addresses, URLs and passwords. France is fishing in troubled waters, and for a different point of view we might as well take a look at the data security breach that the online marketing firm Epsilon faced.  Epsilon, with a client portfolio including JPMorgan, Dell, Marriot, US Bank, Citi, Best Buy, MoneyGram, Verizon and many retailers, is undergoing a communication crisis as well as up to this moment has not offered any detailed information on the security threat.

Considering that at least 2% of Epsilon’s customers have been affected by the security breach, the chances of phishing threats are significantly increasing as millions of email addresses have been leaked. Adding to this last week’s security breach within EMC’s security division, RSA, it is becoming harder and harder for security providers to promote their services.