Apple users join Microsoft with complaints about Google

Windows Phone users have been up in arms over Google for some weeks.

There's anger over the search giant's decision to stop Windows phones syncing with Google calendar and contacts at the end of January.

And there was the Big G's attempts to stop Google Maps working on WP.

Now Apple users are joining the outcry over Google's apparent belief it can steamroller through anything.

Their complaint is over privacy concerns:

BBC News: They claim that Google bypassed Safari's security settings to install cookies which tracked their movements on the internet.

Between summer 2011 and spring 2012 they were assured by Google this was not the case, and believed Safari's settings to be secure.

So far one person has begun legal proceedings against Google.

A law firm has been instructed to co-ordinate further claims made by other individuals.

Last year Google was fined $22.5m (£14m) in the US for the same actions.

The cookies collected data about the online activities of web users in order for Google to provide more targeted advertising to them.

Judith Vidal-Hall, former editor of Index On Censorship magazine, is the first person in the UK to begin legal action.

"Google claims it does not collect personal data but doesn't say who decides what information is 'personal'," she said.

"Whether something is private or not should be up to the internet surfer, not Google. We are best placed to decide, not them."

When Google was fined by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012, chairman Jon Leibowitz said that all companies must "keep their privacy promises to customers".

However the penalty was for Google misrepresenting its actions to Safari users rather than for the actual act of bypassing the security settings, and the firm was not obliged to admit wrongdoing.

Google declined to comment on the latest action, which has been launched to coincide with the sixth annual Data Privacy Day in the UK.

(Source: BBC)