Google has announced some changes to their privacy policy. The current arrangement includes a total of 70 separate documents covering all of their services. On March 1st, 60 of those documents are being rolled into one main privacy policy.
The new privacy policy, which is available for preview now, is short and wonderfully free of legalese. That’s not to say that there’s nothing troubling in the new policy, there’s a couple of sections that have me concerned. The first (not necessarily in order of appearance) talks about how Google is moving to track your behaviour across all of their services. As a Google fan (and I am), I think this is a good move for personalized search. However:
We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Google Account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.
So, if on Google Docs, you’re Sean Enns (as I am) and on YouTube you’re Harbour City SEO (as I am), they’ll replace one to make it synchronous with the other. That’s fine, so long as I have the choice. The troubling bit is here: “If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.”
Emails are easy to get, most people have their email posted publicly somewhere (their Facebook page, for instance), so this represents a privacy nightmare and a goldmine for phishers and data miners. Google would be smart to dress this up a bit, perhaps by offering a link to some advanced privacy controls. I, for one, would like to be able to tell Google exactly how many connections someone should have with me before they’re able to see my personal profile.
The second bit needs some serious clarification, in my opinion. It reads:
We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users
The word that has me concerned is “protect”. It’s a powerful word, and it’s unclear (in this iteration) exactly whom Google is protecting their services from, and whom they’re protecting me from. Terrorists? Microsoft? Twitter? Google needs to clarify what they mean here.
The answer
I’ve always said this about Google. Because Google is a private company, their first responsibility is to the shareholders, not to the user. Based on my readings, Google seems to try quite hard to find the balance between the two, but their sole purpose is to increase market share. They don’t owe me anything, and anything they give me (such as free traffic from organic search results) is a gift, not a right.
If you don’t like the scope of what Google is doing with your info, while you can’t necessarily opt out, you can log out. When you’re finished checking your Gmail, log out. Surf anonymously, disable cookies on your browser. It’s the best tool you have to ensure that your personal information isn’t being collected and used across platforms. Your search results won’t be as relevant, or as rich, but your personal information will stay that way.
Related content:
Google’s New Privacy Policy Raising Questions in Washington
Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on January 25, 2012 at 12:41 pm, filed under Marketing, Privacy and tagged Google. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.