The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Federal Trade Commission over Google's upcoming privacy policy changes, according to a posting on the EPIC site. EPIC says that the new privacy policy is in clear violation of a consent order the company signed with the FTC in March 2011 that was created in reaction to the Google Buzz privacy fiasco.

Google's privacy policy changes, to go into effect March 1, let the company synchronize data it collects from users across all of its services. Google claims this benefits its customers with better service integration; for instance, if your Android phone's GPS can see your Calendar, it can alert you that you will be late to an appointment if you're too distant from a meeting location. The business benefit is that user information gleaned from Google Wallet, Docs, and YouTube can be synthesized and used to target ads.

EPIC claims this policy change is in violation of the consent order Google signed with the FTC over Google Buzz's exposure of consumer data. The order states that Google must give the customer the ability to opt in (or out) to new instances of data sharing with third parties.

EPIC filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the FTC to enforce the consent order signed over Google Buzz. In the complaint, EPIC describes Google's privacy transgressions last year: "Google’s terms of service stated that Google would use information given by Gmail users only for to provide email services. Instead, Google used this information in Buzz."

Congress has expressed some concern over the policy change, to which Google responded with a letter stating that "the update is about making our services more useful for that individual user, not about information available to third parties", and that "the main change in the updated privacy policy is for users signed into Google Accounts." People can use the company's services without a Google account, or keep separate accounts for sensitive cases, says Google.

Of course, if a user decides the new privacy policy makes them uncomfortable, they can't continue to use Google's services the way they always have without a Google account—there is no more Gmail and no more YouTube uploads. "Google has come to control so many essential Internet services, it is silly to say now 'if you don't like what we are doing, go away,'" Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, told Ars.

Google also says in the letter, "if a user is signed in, she can still edit or turn off her search history, switch Gmail chat to off the record, control the way Google tailors ads to her interests using our Ads Preferences Manager, [and] use Incognito mode on Chrome." However, the fact that these privacy-sensitive settings are not the default seems to be the most upsetting factor to privacy groups.

EPIC points out the the description of the new privacy policy addresses the fact that the data sharing will improve ads only in a limited, obscure way, and the announcement fails to "disclose that users can limit the aggregation of their personal information," the argument that Google tried to use to deflect Congress's concern.

The definition of "third party" is another point of contention. While Google's stance seems to be that acting as an intermediary between collected data and advertisers, along with the data's lack of personally identifiable information, is enough to dispense with the concern over whether the company is giving info to third parties. EPIC's motion states that "third parties" are everyone except Google and its subsidiaries. By that definition, advertisers are third parties, and Google's changes will "make it possible to gain access to personal information which was previously unavailable to them," says EPIC.