Business / Technology

BRUSSELS — European governments are pressing Google to halt coming changes to its privacy policies while they investigate the implications for personal-data protection.

The move is a shot across the bow for a range of companies, including Facebook, that rely on the European market of 500 million people for a hefty portion of their business. It comes amid a new drive to make privacy protection in Europe — where people are generally more wary than Americans about surveillance by companies and governments — more coherent and efficient.

Viviane Reding, the European Union's justice commissioner, called on authorities Friday "to ensure that EU law is fully complied with in Google's new privacy policy."

She was backing a request sent Thursday by national data-protection authorities to Google, asking that the search-engine company suspend its plans to change its privacy policies March 1 while they conduct an inquiry into the implications for citizens and users.

The authorities wrote to Larry Page, chief executive of Google, to "call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens."

Reding said Friday that the investigation would help give "legal certainty for citizens and businesses."

Google announced late last month it would combine about 60 privacy policies for separate products to create a simple system for users that also satisfied the wishes of regulators.

The company said Friday it was prepared to answer any questions raised by the investigation but gave no indication it would delay the changes. Instead, it suggested any delay instituting the new policy would harm rather than help the 350 million users it had notified about the changes.

The French data-privacy regulator, known as CNIL, is conducting the investigation on behalf of 26 other European Union governments. CNIL said Friday there was no formal deadline for completing the inquiry.

"Of course, we're going to try to do it as quickly as possible," said Gwendal Le Grand, an official at the agency.

The investigation into Google also seems to reflect a degree of coordination with like-minded counterparts in the U.S. Congress.

Eight members of the House of Representatives, including Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., sent Page a formal request for information about Google's new privacy policy Jan. 26.

The letter contained 11 questions about the new policy, including whether consumers could opt out of the new system, either globally or on a product-by-product basis.