In compliance with the US Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) counsel that Google develop a privacy policy for its Book Search feature, such that use of consumer data is restricted, Google has released explicit details about the privacy policy it intends using if it receives the court approval of its Book Search settlement with US Authors Guild and publishers.

The lawsuit against the proposed settlement, which has received widespread criticism from Google's rivals - Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo - as well as from privacy advocates, has been scheduled for a hearing in a New York court on October 7.

Announcing the new privacy policy in a Thursday blog post, Jane Horvath - Google's general privacy counsel - said: "To provide all users with a clear understanding of our practices, we wanted to highlight key provisions of the main Google Privacy Policy in the context of the Google Books service, as well as to describe privacy practices specific to the Google Books service."

Some of the highlights of the new policy include: no requirement of Google account for viewing online books or through a university's institution subscription or from a library's public terminal at a library; removal of record of books purchased via a Google account and no disclosure of information to credit card companies; and post-approval release of a more detailed privacy policy containing specific language about the different services available.