Brussels, 15/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - Alex Türk, the president of the G29, which brings together European data protection authorities, and Peter Fleisher, the head of Google's personal data protection, have begun a heated exchange on personal data storage in Europe. In an interview in Les Echos on 7 April, the former criticised Google for having blocked European negotiations on the period of time internauts' personal data could be held. Google effectively refused to lower the period for stocking data to a maximum of 6 months, despite the recommendation made a year ago by the G29 (EUROPE 9639). Mr Türk declared: “Microsoft announced that it was prepared to go down to six months if the others did as well. Yahoo went down to three months. Google suddenly found itself on its own”. Türk criticised this blockage and added that “Google cannot in any concrete terms explain the reasons why it needs this time. We have to wonder what is hidden behind this position”. He also said that the US assimilated personal data into “commercial goods”, while the Europeans focused more on the attributes of the person in question. In an interview to the same newspaper on 14 April, Mr Fleischer counterattacked and affirmed that the G29's recommendation was not “the force of law”. According to Fleischer, Google is prepared to do more when technology will allow this to happen: “We are currently obliged to keep data for 9 months to improve our search algorithm. Other engines have different algorithms and can be subject to different arbitration. It is therefore difficult to have the same time limit. The latter also criticised the “very pessimistic” and “technophobic” vision put forward by Alex Türk when he criticised the US approach towards personal data. Mr Fleischer said that in the context of the rules that could be adopted on transparency, Mr Türk had “torpedoed” the European Commission's initiative that had nominated experts to look at personal data protection, because of the commercial ties between certain experts in the group and US companies (EUROPE 9845). (B.C./transl.rh)