European regulators today claimed that Google's new privacy policy violates European law, but Google has started rolling it out to users anyway. Google announced the new policy in January, stating that it would take effect by March 1, and it was implemented today as scheduled.

Yet the policy faces legal threats. In the US last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission, saying that Google's new privacy policy violates a consent order the company signed with the FTC in March 2011 after the Google Buzz controversy.

A French data protection commission investigating Google's privacy policy on behalf of the EU said this week that the privacy policy violates the European Data Protection Directive and that both the French "and the EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of data across services and will continue their investigations with Google’s representatives."

Today, an official with the EU agreed with the French position. "Data protection agencies in European countries have concluded Google Inc's new privacy policy is in breach of European law, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Thursday," according to Reuters.

The policy violates European law in numerous ways, Reding said. "One is that nobody had been consulted, it is not in accordance with the law on transparency and it utilizes the data of private persons in order to hand it over to third parties, which is not what the users have agreed to."

In a letter to Google, the French regulators claimed Google did not properly inform all relevant authorities quickly enough and said that it is "impossible for average users" to understand the company's updated privacy policy because it contains only general information. But Google Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said earlier this week that Google would not postpone the implementation of the new policy, and that Google complied with European laws by notifying users about the changes.

In a statement sent to Ars this morning, a Google spokesperson said "We are confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles. It provides all the information required in Articles 10 & 11 of the directive, plus much additional information, and it follows the guidelines published by the Article 29 Working Party in 2004."