As the European Union keeps on asking Google why it keeps personal information for two years, the images of Google becoming big brother from the classic book “1984” has taken hold. The ramifications to Google are enormous, and the job of being a Google Public Relations hack just got a lot tougher.

There are concerns the search engine giant could become an internet Big Brother. Britain’s Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has teamed up with European colleagues to ask Google why so much data is stored and why it is kept for so long. Source: The Age

This is an unaccustomed place for Google to be in as a company, given the original tag line of “Do No Evil”, the founders of Google have to be wondering how they got here. Microsoft has long dealt with the EU for competition issues, and the play book there is to extend out things as long as humanly possible before a decision is made. Google finds itself under the same kind of scrutiny now, and we expect to see roughly the same kind of play, drag it out as long as possible.

It is good that they are going to meet with EU privacy groups, the end result of this will either be they are ok with it as long as no local laws are broken, or enforcement of the EU privacy laws on systems that Google keeps in Europe.

AOL Stalker points out the dangers to people who have their data exposed, and Google is becoming a very tempting target for people who trade in personal information. How Google addresses this remains to be seen.