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European Union regulators have demanded that Google substantially change its controversial privacy policies or risk fines, a move that threatens to slow the US search giant’s introduction of new products and advertising schemes in Europe.

European privacy watchdogs said a probe led by the French regulator CNIL showed that Google failed to provide users with adequate information about how their personal data were being used across the US group’s different platforms. Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, CNIL’s chairwoman, said that unless Google implements the recommended changes within three to four months, the dispute will “move on to another phase, which is a sanctions phase.”

Falque-Pierrotin, asked a senior official from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission last week to support a letter identifying significant legal shortcomings in Google’s privacy policy, she said. The FTC official, David C. Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, declined. “We would have been happy if they would have signed it,” Falque-Pierrotin said. “I think they will study it and have their own conclusions.” Vladeck confirmed the French request, which was made during a meeting in Brussels, but declined to comment on his response. The FTC also has declined to comment on whether it is investigating any of the privacy issues raised by the other regulators.

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn said it found underage interns as young as 14 working at one of its factories in China.

Foxconn Technology Group said the interns were found by a company investigation at its factory in the eastern city of Yantai and were sent back to their schools. China's minimum legal working age is 16. Foxconn, owned by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is best known as the manufacturer of Apple Inc.'s iPhone but said the Yantai factory had no connection with its work for Apple. The company said it is investigating with schools how the interns were sent to its factory. It didn't say how many underage interns it found.

The Federal Trade Commission today issued the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2012. The FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry lets consumers choose not to receive telemarketing calls. In its fourth year of publication, the Data Book contains a wealth of information about the Registry for FY 2012 (from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012), including:

• The number of active registrations and consumer complaints since the Registry began in 2003;
• FY 2012 complaint figures by month and type;
• FY 2012 registration and complaint figures for all 50 states and the District of Columbia by population;
• Rankings of the number of Do Not Call registrations by state population;
• The number of entities accessing the Registry by fiscal year; and
• An appendix on registration and complaint figures by state and area code.
• According to the Data Book, at the end of FY 2012, the Do Not Call Registry contained 217,568,135 actively registered phone numbers, up from 209,722,924 at the end of FY 2011. In addition, the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls received increased from 2,273,516 during FY 2011 to 3,840,572 during FY 2012.
• This year’s Data Book also reveals trends in complaint data. In addition to providing information on the total number of consumer complaints per month, it also contains data on the number of monthly complaints specifically related to pre-recorded telemarketing “robocalls,” and requests for a telemarketer to stop calling.

[Commentary] Why all the fuss over Clearwire? The company has struggled mightily since its nationwide WiMAX rollout came to an abrupt halt in 2010 while the rest of the mobile industry threw its lot in with LTE. The company has since announced plans to deploy its own variant of LTE, called time-division or TD-LTE. Ostensibly that new network is going up right now, but Clearwire has been known to promise networks that fail to appear.

Clearwire needs both cash and customers to realize its network ambitions, and it might still be holding out hopes that a Softbank deal with Sprint is the key to both. In Softbank Clearwire has found a kindred soul. The carrier is pursuing its own TD-LTE build out in Japan, using the exact same 2.5 GHz band as Clearwire. The two are already partners in a global TD-LTE consortium – along with China Mobile and India’s Bharti – tasked with creating a handset and device ecosystem for their pet technology. A three-way marriage between Clearwire, Sprint and SoftBank would only further those goals. But SoftBank could feel there are other ways Sprint can use that cash to get the future capacity it needs, either by bidding in future 4G auctions or through other strategic acquisitions. Maybe Clearwire is ultimately part of SoftBank’s U.S. ambitions, but it would be a mistake to assume that the two are natural fit just because they’re pursuing the same LTE technology.