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Google Changes Privacy Policy
jemecki writes "Yahoo reports that Google has updated their privacy policy on user data collection. The new policy now explicitly states that 'Google may use personal information to display customized content and advertising, develop new services and ensure that its network continues to function.' It also adds that employees who violate the policy will be fired and prosecuted. They have also added a Cliffs Notes version of their privacy policy for those who don't want to RTFPP."
I don't leave my house without my tinfoiled hat firmly in place, but I could care less about privacy policies. Especially those that require my signature. I will probably stop signing those, but I haven't felt like getting into it with the person who cannot see past the point that there is no point in agreeing or signing a "policy" that clearly says "I can change the rules at any time without notifying you".
Signing something like that is ignorant in my opinion because signing something implies agreement, and agreeing to an openended and potentially radically different terms doesn't seem much like an agreement to me.
I think that all of us should get together with a lawyer and create our own privacy statement and ask others to sign it, and not the other way around.
No kidding. They will use information collected about users to target advertising. That is the price you pay to use thier free email service, search service, desktop, etc. As long as they keep that private infomration within google, then fine. Looks like I will be RTFPP tonight.
"I feel this is a breach of our rights"
What rights are you referring to? This is a SERVICE. You are free to CHOOSE not to use the service. Why do "feel" your rights are being violated by a company that you can choose not to give your business to?
I feel this is a breach of our rights.
Taking away your gun is a breach of your rights. Incarcerating you for standing on a soapbox shouting 'Bush is a Dirty Bunny Tickler' is a breach of your rights. A non-governmental entity collecting information you provide while surfing along on this Internet-thingy, that's no breach of your rights. Don't use Google. Don't surf the Internet-thingy. Use cash.
If the government forces you to use Google, or Google develops a monopoly on whatever the hell it does in an unfair manner, then let's have this conversation again. But now, today? Ain't no rights-breachin' goin' on here.
Now, the fact that Google seems to edge ever closer to The Dark Side (at least in the eyes of its Slashdot fanboy faithful) is certainly a daily source of amusement to me, but as for actual rights breaching? Wow. I'm not even sure they, as a corporate and not a governmental entity, are even capable of doing that.
Of course Google doesn't need 5000 computers just to serve a website. But have you ever considered that they might need a lot of computers for their index database? The last figure they gave on their website I recall was on the order of 8.5 billion indexed pages; their appliances seem to be able to index about 1 million documents per unit (in the more expensive models), so it's probably not unreasonable to assume that Google itself uses (very roughly!) 8500 computers for that, at least.
They probably still have a large number of machines dedicated to datamining as well, but don't underestimate the computing power necessary to power a large search engine.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Um, yes? Google is probably the most-visited site on the internet. Millions of requests per second would be reasonable. I'd be suprised if they were only running off 5000 boxes.
Actually, I attended a Google presentation awhile back that gave some general information on how requests are handled. Apparently, for each search a user makes, it's processed by around 100 boxes for search results alone.
Now don't get me wrong, Google collects processes advertising data without question. It's just they also process a huge amount of other data, too. We're not talking about an advertisement company that happens to let you search the web.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
You probably ought not to be complaining before reading the full thing, anyway.
I think people have less of a concern on individual products, but the cross ties make it concerning to some people. i.e. Being able to easily identify who you are from google mail, than cross reference that with all the websites you goto, combine with froogle, google desktop and maps tends to cause people to pause for a second. Separate individual databases aren't that big of a privacy concern, sharing databases allowing one to correlate wide disparate information sources easily can have a large privacy concern (but unfortunately only those types give the most useful, targeted, pertinent information that people really are wanting).
If one wanted to get out the tin-foil hat. Life insurance company wants to check on a person to see their health history. Using the data that google currently has, they could identify you has a probable high-risk by:
Correlate you to google mail (faily easy task)
In google mail, monitor for any health related email messages (i.e. dad died of heart failure at 35)
From gmail match your IP to a person doing searches for heart disease
Using the IP identify that you recently mapped driving directions to a heart specialist
Also using your IP froogle match any product searches/purchases related to health risk
That's the tin-foil usage there, if everybody is scared of allowing the government to have databases connected (for the above reasons), than we should be as scared or even more so that a private organization has this capabilities but has no freedom of information act requirements to be held to (or other such public controls)
Some people act like internet sites are the only people collecting personal data. Did you ever use a "Club Card"? Heck, credit card companies have been giving away your personal information for decades based on your spending habits. We shouldn't pick on targeted internet ads like it's a new problem, its just a whole lot cheaper than mass mailing samples of toilet paper to a million people - this way than can target only those that wipe.
--Insert profound quote here.
So in essence: google are still promising not to sell your details; they've clarified their policy against employees selling it on (they're anti-) and they've made the document easier to read. On the minus side, they've failed to provide information that Yahoo! don't provide either. Which seems to be about as evil as Google gets.
Of course, Yahoo does have a vested interest here. Maybe we should take this with a pinch of salt?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
If you want to not use Google services to keep your tinfoil hat pinned tightly to your head, feel free.
I am not a Google fanboi, but I am pretty positive that most any internet related use is going to identify you and pin some type of information to you.
Thats just how it is.
Whether they know your name, address, search history, email content (using online email acct), I am pretty sure that all of this at some point so going to be available to SOMEONE with continued use on the internet.
Its scary, but I don't see a way around it. I make a pretty good attempt at disguising my usage at home, but when i have an IP address and I go out on to any web site...BAM...right there I have something that can be linked back to me.
I could go to Bob's CRAZY Search engine and hope that he knows what he is doing, and go to the 12 pages that he has indexed, or I can use Google, which has been upfront with their practices about what they'll use the information for. Someone offered a Google Search > Google News > Google Email traingulation method to try and learn more about you....well, I got news for ya, all of that info can be gained from your ISP, without all the smoke and mirrors, if there are people are so inclinded to get it.
Joe 6-Pack can't get that information from your ISP, but he can't get it from Google either, and anyone who is serious enough to want to go through the trouble of tracking you that hard, Google isn't going to be their main tool in getting to your ass.
How is it tempting to perform an action that would chase away half of your users in an ad-based market? Are they tempted to commit suicide? I don't think so. As long as Google do not hold a monopoly in any of their 'markets', there remains a massive incentive for them to keep a consumer-friendly privacy policy. If they did something so stupid as to abandon privacy, the press would have a field day (hell the astroturf-"journalism" world is already pushing "google is evil" every other day already as it is), users would panic, and their shareholders (and advertisers) would follow suit and pull out, leaving their overpriced stock to collapse - Google would be dead.
With only about a third of the search market, they are nowhere near a monopoly and do not wield much control over the market, if any. There are other search engines that, although not as good as Google, are certainly "good enough".Users could and would quickly flock to alternates. They don't hold a monopoly in any other market either - not blog sites, not online mapping, not free mail services, etc.