Google Inc. was ordered by a German regulator to limit how it combines user data that could be used to find out customers’ personal preferences, including marital status or sexual orientation.

The operator of the biggest Internet search engine was ordered to modify its privacy policies so users have the ability to determine how their data is used, Johannes Caspar, Hamburg’s privacy watchdog, said in an e-mailed statement today. The terms of Google’s 2012 privacy policy allow the Mountain View, California-based company to combine data it retrieves when customers use various services, including Gmail, Caspar said.

“With that, one can compile detailed movement patterns, detect the social and financial status, and friendship, sexual orientation and the relationship status” of a person, the regulator said.

Google is under pressure across Europe over data-protection issues. Regulators throughout the European Union last week asked Chief Executive Officer Larry Page to implement measures to improve its privacy policy. In addition, the company has been criticized over its response to an EU court ruling that requires it to delete links to personal information that individuals consider outdated or irrelevant.

Source: Bloomberg

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