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Google Defends Privacy Policies
adeelarshad82 writes "Google responded to a letter from 10 international privacy commissioners who criticized the company's approach to privacy, insisting that Google protects its customers and has moved quickly to make changes regarding Google Buzz. In a letter to the commissioners, global privacy counsels for Google stated, 'We are committed to being transparent with our users about the information that we collect when they use our products and services, why we collect it, and how we use it to improve their experience.' The April inquiry from the officials included privacy commissioners from Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK."
Given the horrid behavior of Facebook over the last month I'm feeling a lot better about Google. Maybe they're equally sleazy, but at least they don't whack you over the head with their sleaze.
If anything it's Facebook's "We honestly don't give a shit what you think 'cause millions of others won't care what we do as long as they've got Farmville" attitude that annoys me more than the privacy issues.
Three Squirrels
it's easy to say 'google doesnt value privacy' . however i have yet to see someone make a post in any of these stories about an alternative search engine that
- gives just as good of results as google
- has a history of protecting privacy (google resisted a court order from the government as much as they could. other search engines happily complied)
the deal with search engines is simple. if you want a good working search engine that supports MILLIONS of users you are either going to have to pay or the search provider will need to use advertising. also said search provider is going to need to mine search results to give better results and when the government brings a patriot act court order , any business is going to comply.
do you think bing, yahoo and altavista would tell the US government "we'll take jail over handing you these records"? atleast google's owners tell you if you don't want your searches for something recorded, dont do them online in a non-anonymous way because it recorded. do you see another search provider doing that?