FTC declined to join European criticism of Google Regulators from three continents presented a unified face Tuesday in criticizing Google's tracking of users across services and calling for major changes in its privacy policy. But one key player declined to participate: the U.S. government. The head of the French Data Protection Authority, Isabelle 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 in an interview Tuesday. 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 Tuesday by the other regulators. The members of the group that criticized Google on Tuesday were mostly European, but they presented a supporting letter from the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities forum, representing regulators in Australia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Macau and Canada. That letter, like the one sent to Google by the Europeans, expressed concern about the collecting of data as users moved among services such as Gmail, YouTube and the Chrome browser. It calls on Google to give users ways to opt out of tracking; if they don't , the data collected still should expire from the company's servers after a fixed period, the regulators say. Falque-Pierrotin said the FTC told her it did not have enough time to review and sign on to the letter. The request for such a sweeping and public declaration could have been complicated by an ongoing regulatory matter. The FTC last year signed a consent decree with Google over allegations that its Google Buzz social media service violated the privacy of users by using their e-mail contacts to develop the service. Some users had their contacts revealed publicly online. That decree imposed a 20-year review period. When Google allegedly violated the decree through its handling of cookies on Apple's Safari browser, the FTC imposed a record $22.5 million fine in July. The FTC also is in the final phases of deciding whether to sue Google over antitrust allegations.