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The word “privacy” now appears on Google’s home page, with a link to the company’s privacy policy.

With that one word, the Web search giant heads off the growing controversy over whether its previous practice ran afoul of a California law, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which requires the operator of a commercial Web site that collects personal information to link to its privacy policy from its home page.

When The New York Times wrote in May that Google appeared to be violating the law, Google said that it did not believe that it was required to put a link on its home page. The company said that its privacy policy was easy enough to find, either on the page called “About Google” or by searching for “Google privacy policy” on its search engine.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the European Commission are close to coming to a conclusion in an agreement that would allow the American organization to access private EU citizen data such as credit card history and frequently visited web pages. Privacy organizations are strongly contesting this agreement and say they will sue the EU Commission.

Privacy International’s director, Simon Davies, had this to say: “It is very much on the cards for Privacy International, or one of the other civil rights organizations, to take legal action against Brussels. It would depend very much on how the framework has been established. We will have to see the text, consult the legal experts and see where we stand.”

The EU Commission and the FBI are adopting a very “cloak-and-dagger” approach and have yet to disclose any relevant information about the agreement. Simon Davies continues: “One of the key problems is the secrecy which has surrounded the terms. We have no knowledge about where our information will flow once it reaches the U.S. In all respects, this is a bad deal for Europeans. It plays into the hands of the U.S. in the worst possible way.”

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