Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Does Google’s new privacy policy conflict with European law? France’s official data protection agency is launching an investigation to find out.

The Paris-based data watchdog CNIL will check out Google’s new policies across Europe, reports Reuters.

The team of regulators will produce questions for the company by mid-March, according to a letter CNIL sent Google.

“The CNIL and EU data authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services,” CNIL wrote to Google. “They have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing, and its compliance with European data protection legislation.”

Google announced controversial changes to its privacy policy in January. The updated rules will house all of Google’s products, including YouTube, Gmail and Google+, under one privacy roof.

Google also announced that it would start using data collected by non-search products (such as Google Docs) to improve results in Google Search. So if you often share news and photos of the latest sports cars on your Google+ profile, Google will now be able to use that data to give you Volkswagens instead of insects when you search the web for “beetle.”

Google reiterated its commitment to privacy in a blog post early this month — while saying it remains open to questions about the changes. Google also sent a letter to CNIL responding to its inquiry.

According to Google, these changes will make the overall Google experience simpler, more seamless and more user-friendly and cross-platform user data will not be shared with advertisers.

“As we’ve said several times over the past week, while our privacy policies will change on 1st March, our commitment to our privacy principles is as strong as ever,” wrote Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel.

CamScanner is a breeze to use, and you can test out the free version via the Market link above. Snap a photo of your document and pull up the cropping tool. The app will auto-detect the edges of the paper, but the slick drag-and-snap guides will help you fine tune the dimensions.

The processing enhancements are smart, and will compensate for low light and bad focus reasonably well. Though the app generates a cropped and toned image, it will also hang onto the original photo — handy, in case you accidentally cropped your boss’ name off the letterhead.

The app has built-in integration with Google Docs, Box.net and Dropbox, but for the less fancy among you, it’s easy to pipe scanned docs straight into email.

The main issue we encountered was with PDF creation. The original image is stored as a JPEG, but the option to convert it to a PDF simply opened the phone’s default PDF viewer. The file is viewable, but we found no apparent way to save or share.

The paid version promises to make things easier in this department, but you should see how the free version performs on your device before purchasing.

Price: Free / $4.99 for full license and features

In a recent survey of around 900 Internet and tech experts and social analysts, Elon University researchers found that most of their respondents said Internet users will “live mostly in the cloud” by 2020.

These experts, or a full 71% of them, at least, predict we’ll be working primarily through web-based and mobile apps, such as Facebook and Google Docs, and less on software installed on our own desktops.

This group isn’t forecasting the death of the desktop altogether, though — at least, not just yet. According to this study, the majority of respondents think that in the future, we’ll use a hybrid of cloud and desktop computing, with web-based programs continuing to grow in their scope and role.

This question about cloud-based applications was raised as part of a 10-question survey conducted jointly with the Pew Research Center. The statement that leads us to this 71% figure of majority agreement reads thus:

“By 2020, most people won’t do their work with software running on a general-purpose PC. Instead, they will work in Internet-based applications such as Google Docs, and in applications run from smartphones. Aspiring application developers will develop for smartphone vendors and companies that provide Internet-based applications, because most innovative work will be done in that domain, instead of designing applications that run on a PC operating system.”

The advantage of instant access to information regardless of device, operating system or location is a huge factor in the dominance of web apps over desktop apps. “The cloud” is accessible from work, from home, from any location with an Internet connection, and increasingly, from our ever-smarter mobile devices.

Who wouldn’t find that kind of postmodern fluidity appealing? We’re no longer tied to offices for work, nor are our social activities locked away at home.

Yet some of the same experts in this mega-panel disagreed, mainly on grounds of security and privacy.

“Trust not the cloud for reliability, security, privacy,” said respondent Barry Wellman, a professor of sociology and Netlab director at the University of Toronto. Another enterprise blogger predicted a “huge blow-up with terrorism in the cloud… People will lose confidence as cyber attacks cripple major systems.”

Craig Partridge, chief scientist at BBN Technologies, noted, “I think a big issue will be information privacy. How do you really control access to your valuable data if it is in the cloud? How do you retrieve your prized novel or your business records if the cloud fails?”

What’s your take on this issue? Do you fall into the group more concerned with security and privacy, more wary than enthusiastic about the potential benefits and likely pitfalls of an overly eager approach to cloud computing?

Or are you a seasoned netizen who welcomes the new fluidity that web and mobile applications are bringing to our lives and work? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Almost two years ago, I wrote When Google Owns You, about what happened with Nick Saber was cut off from all his Google applications. It’s worth taking a quick read now. Now, it’s my turn. I woke up this morning in Montreal to find that my access to my Google accounts has been temporarily disabled due to a “perceived violation of either the Google Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of Service.”

Don’t ask why. I haven’t found out yet. I can’t just yet. I’m in Canada.

So, here’s the list of things I can’t do without my Google Account:

• Use my phone properly – it’s an Android phone.
• Access my primary calendar.
• Access my Google Wave (for collaboration projects).
• Access all my RSS subscriptions (Google Reader).
• Access my documents (Google Docs).

For anyone who wants to write in the comments “you should have a backup for everything, etc,” save the ink. We all know we should have more than one system, but, look again. That means carrying another phone, using a synced calendar platform, and then for the last three, a lot of document sync.

But my thing is this: my access to several core functions are downed in one shot.

The only upside: it *appears* that it’ll be easier to fix this once I’m back in the States. I simply have to give them my phone number to receive a text message. Note that I say “appears.” I use a Google Voice phone number. Will it even be able to receive my text message from Google helping me open my accounts?

Awesome. Thanks, Google.