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Google Consolidates Privacy Policies Across Services
parallel_prankster writes "The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Google will require users to allow the company to follow their activities across e-mail, search, YouTube, and other services; a radical shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices. The information will enable Google to develop a fuller picture of how people use its growing empire of Web sites. Consumers will have no choice but to accept the changes. The policy will take effect March 1 and will also impact Android mobile phone users. 'If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services,' Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, product, and engineering, wrote in a blog post."
The angle of the Washington Post article is a bit negative; Google sees this as consolidating an absurd number of privacy policies for its various services into a single, unified document. Reader McGruber adds: "Donald E. Graham, the Washington Post's chairman and CEO, joined Facebook's Board of Directors in January 2009. Curiously, the Washington Post article neglects to disclose that."
Of course the article is a tad negative, Google's new unprivacy policy sucks. Facebook sucks too, doesn't matter who's president of which corp.
But I will be nice and point out that this happened at the same time FB's Blakeboy blasted Google for being evil.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
I think this is a great idea for both users and the company. Users have only a single place that they have to go to for their privacy concerns. Likewise for the company they only have to have corporate counsel review one privacy policy instead of several. The company saves money and the consumer saves hassle.
Note that I'm only talking about the idea of consolidating the privacy policies themselves. I am not talking about the merit of whether or not the privacy policy is a good one or not.
I actually assumed they already did this (used your email to determine what ads you saw on search and such).
Either way, personally it doesn’t bug me too much. If they were selling the information it might.. but as long as they keep it in house and it’s all being processed by automated algorithms I’ve got no qualms.
That’s not to say I don’t recognize other people might have issues with this, and I definitely don’t subscribe to the whole “if you have nothing to hide” nonsense. This is just my personal view. Some people want privacy and they don’t (nor should they) need a reason.
The concept itself isn't bad, and even something I, personally would use. The major issue is that doing ANYTHING with personal info without user consent is a really bad idea, no matter how benign it may or may not be in application. One does hope that enough negative feedback on this policy would be enough to shift the implementation to something less...well...evil.
is that people are surprised or even upset about this.
Google is an ad company, nothing more. Of course they're going to grub for every last iota of personal information they can -- it's what they do.
google is the NSA's bitch
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It sucks since they hadn't been doing it before, but I honestly thought they would have been doing across all of their products all along.
Sheesh. You and other sheeple will have no choice, but the rest of us will be just fine.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
bye bye, google. seems like the spineless clowns who made you OD'ed at last.
Just stop using Google products and tell that David Drummond asshole why you chose to do that.
Sure I have a choice - I can buy myself out of my mobile phone contract and pay the early termination fees (which is the monthly tariff times the number of months left on the contract, several hundred pounds) and get a non-Android based phone, or I can put up with it.
Not much of a choice if you ask me.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
In a shock revelation this morning, journalists from McGruber "but I haven't told you where my interests lie" Inc. have uncovered credible information that doctors - professionals who spend much of their time administering advice, medication and surgery to sick people - also make money from providing these services. A spokesperson for doctors has been consulted to ask her why it is that all sentences uttered by doctors do not include a clear and explicit statement of this obvious conflict of interest.
Professor of Internet Argument Steve Meretzky at the University of Life states, "We have no idea why doctors have gone so long without admitting this. It opens them up to immediate defeat by ad hominem and a warm, smug glow on the face of the other party." The Professor then suggested that the warm, smug glow could be reinterpreted by doctors as a sign of illness and used to sell patients more unnecessary healthcare.
Rep. Simon Schama (DR., Washingwa), promises to next week propose a bill requiring all doctors to explain to their patients how jobs work. "You can trust me," he explains, "because made a campaign promise during the last election that I would only accept campaign contributions from the media industry, but not the medical industry."
We look forward to updating readers on progress in the legislature.
This isn't a change in Google's policy, or practice. Google has long collected information about all of its users, and used that information for targeted advertising. Those of us who think about things realized long ago that Google has tremendous visibility into our on-line activities and is smart enough to be able to extract a lot of information about us. All that's happening here is that Google is making this fact more visible to users by condensing dozens of long privacy policy documents written in legalese into one short, understandable document. According to their blog entry, Google is also going to be doing a lot of advertising to make sure that everyone is aware of the policy document.
In the short term, I think Google is going to suffer from a lot of backlash from users who are frightened by the explanation of what Google collects about them, but I think this is a really positive move by Google and I hope it spurs other on-line service providers to follow suit. If you're going to collect and use personal information about people, telling them what you're collecting and how you're using it, and doing so in a way that is easy to understand is the right thing to do. Spending money on a media blitz to make sure that everyone knows how you're watching them is going above and beyond.
Google's policy document also contains a link to Google's privacy tools, which make it easy for users to see what Google is tracking about them and to opt out if they don't want to be tracked. It's potentially risky for Google to advertise that to large numbers of people, but again it's the right thing to do. Google's theory is that when given the ability to make an informed choice, people will see enough value in the search personalization and even targeted advertising that they'll be okay with it.
I guess the truly selfless thing to do would be to make all of Google's tracking opt-in, rather than opt-out, but that's probably too much to hope for -- and it may even be that the world is better off this way, because if Google is right about the value of mass personalization we'd probably never know because hardly anyone will opt in. This way, it's possible that large numbers of people will opt out, but not the majority. In any case, making it all opt in would almost certainly be very damaging to Google's business. The current approach is significantly less risky, but still enables people to limit their privacy exposure if they wish.
[Disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer. I work on the security of systems that process payments to/from Google, though, not on anything related to personal information tracking or privacy (other than I do work really hard to make sure users' payment instruments are well-protected, even from me). These opinions are my own, and based on Google's public statements not on inside information.]
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
As long as they don't tell my boss what kinds of porn I'm looking up at work on my phone, I couldn't care less. ;P
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
People do have a choice. I already alerted my g+ friends I will be deleting my account, using bing, and keeping facebook (for now). Its just too invasive to have one company track me across everything.
quoth "Consumers will have no choice but to accept the changes."
HOLY SHIT REALLY!?!?
No, not really. Stop with the bullshit hyperbole. Consumers have a choice whether or not to accept the changes.
Why do you need to do that? I have an Android phone, and the only thing connected to Google on it that I use is the Market (and there are ones like the Amazon Market that I could use instead, so even that's optional). Everything else was pretty easy to replace.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The difference is that Restaurants don't (normally!) log you as a customer, match your name on an email lookup, then email you to come back or something.
The problem with all of this is that email is "private info type 1" to coin a phrase, aka communication you sent to specific people and *no one else*. Youtube is "private info type 2" which is that you secretly relieve stress by watching Chad Vader episodes on YouTube (to pick a harmless example.) I WANT a little separation between those two activities!
It's the world's greatest Blackmail Engine. For a fee.
"Google AntiReputation Services, how can I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like some dirt on Chris Dodd."
"Okay, looking now. He likes to eat potatoes dipped in tuna salad, and wears Baby Blue underwear on the days of his most important votes."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Hard to get outraged when I was under the assumption that Google already did this. Why wouldn't I think that any time I was logged in with my google account (shared with search, gmail, android, youtube) they they weren't collecting data in the same bin?
Same with Facebook. How many websites have the facebook "like" buttons? When you're signed in to facebook, they are watching everything else you do. Again, I assume it all goes into one big bin of information about me.
Scary to type that out, but not a new development by any means, at least not in my perception.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Okay, so now I'm glad that I kept my email with Yahoo.
At least it makes it a *little* harder to do the "total profile" if it's cross competitors. Of course I might have to worry about Microsoft pulling this stunt, but that's at least next month's problem, not today's.
So okay:
Yahoo Mail, Startpage (Proxied-Or-Something Google search), Youtube. So I can keep the divisions of duties separate.
If I want "Google's nice targetted ads" I'll think about a "Honeypot" account.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I doubt they actually changed anything. I'm pretty sure they already collect and mess data from all their services. This announced change is just to allow them to "officially" use the messed data without getting sued.
Don't use Google for everything.
Probably the most personal information you're giving away is via search and e-mail, and they're the simplest ones to get from different providers. e.g. keep using gmail, but switch to Bing for search, or keep using Google search and switch to someone else for web mail.
For video there's no real choice other than Google, so just make sure that you're not logged in if you're viewing something you don't want to be tracked and associated with your other Google services.
I'm a bit surprised at some of the comments along the lines of "no biggie - I assumed they were doing this already.... This really does make a difference. For example if you previously limited your Google searches.to stuff you wouldn't mind your girlfriend/children/co-workers or whoever seeing as suggested search completions, but weren't so careful on youtube, now you have to worry about that... You'll be getting google search completions popping up on your screen based on your youtube viewing habits! Not so harmless, eh?
That's not a privacy policy! That's a voyeurism policy.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Of course they log you as a customer... have you ever used your credit card number to buy food? You got logged in their accounts receivable. It may not be your email address, but they can get in contact with you via that number. It may be a layer of abstraction, but technically so is a SPAM filter.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
>>>It's the world's greatest Blackmail Engine.
Also government spy resource and censorship: âoeUS government authorities called for the removal of 113 videos from YouTube, including several documenting alleged police brutality which Google refused to take down..... The reason listed for the removal of one You Tube video in one instance is âoegovernment criticismâ. The exact identity or content of the video is not divulged. The report states that the removal requests pertaining to âoepolice brutalityâ were done on the grounds of âoedefamationâ.....
"The number of âoeItems requested to be removedâ by US authorities was almost seven-fold the number requested to be removed by Chinese authorities, a country much maligned for its Internet censorship policies....."
"These figures illustrate how governments, particularly the United States and Britain, are getting more aggressive in pushing for web censorship as the state increasingly tries to strangle the last bastion of true free speech, the Internet"
http://www.infowars.com/feds-order-you-tube-to-remove-video-for-containing-government-criticism/
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Cell phone companies lock you into multi-year contracts. Since Google is including Android in all of this and tells people if they don't like it, don't use the service, does that mean I can cancel my cell phone contract without early termination fees? Otherwise, my carrier is forcing me to divulge information that was not part of my original agreement with the carrier!
That's not so. If you have an Android phone, which Google includes in this new policy, you are giving away your location, who you call, what you search for via the phone, etc. etc. If you phone has the facebook app, then Google also has access to all of that data.
The courts just said that the police can't use a gps device without a court order. Google just change their privacy policy to allow them to track you via your phone wherever you go.
Oh I thought we were already being fucked like this, this wont hurt at all since i've been pretending it was happening already. Maybe ill get another ice cream sandwich....
I accept that Google tracks what I'm doing while logged into one of their systems and I've installed their plugin to make sure they don't track me when I'm *not*. But I was never under the impression that everything will be combined into a single identity and I don't trust that they would ONLY use such information for targeted advertising both now and in the future.
I don't want what I watch on Youtube associated with my email. I don't want documents I open in Google documents to have a history with my digital self. This is too close to a single, universal, Internet Identification program and we have stated many, many times that we do NOT want this. We have separated persona for different reasons for specific reasons. OUR reasons.
I don't want Google's "your world search" giving me biased results because I'm subscribed to a couple newsgroups or because I watched 3 back to back videos from the same band on Youtube.
Google has gone too far. When they merged GoogleAccounts with Youtube, I cancelled my Youtube account and never went back to the proper site. Last night, I started backing up everything in my Gmail account with Thunderbird and pulled everything from my Google Docs account. As of today, I'm not turning on my Asus Transformer (Android) until there's a friendly Ubuntu Tablet Edition installer.
I'm open to suggestions about where to go from here. I need online webmail that will "Do no Google."
Who has suggestions?
You're not correct. And THAT is where the big difference between Google and Facebook lies. Google sells eyes, but the fact of the matter is that they are anonymous eyes, but sold as eyes belonging to people most likely to purchase the product being marketed. However, until you click on that link, all the company knows is that they've been matched to you by the black box of Google magic.
Facebook, on the other hand, shares information with "partners". They are BY DEFINITION a personal info vendor.
Google sells ads, and tailors them to the vendor. Facebook sells your data to the vendor directly. BIG difference in privacy implications.
It is no different than anything else. There is a restaurant in town I will not go to because their service is pitiful. I refuse to support their model with my dollars. If you don't like Google's practices, you are free to take your private information to another email/search/whatever provider.
Not if Google is a monopoly (plenty of things hard to find off YouTube, for instance). And not if the few industry players follow the leader (everyone else has policies just like Google's). That Econ 101 model you read somewhere with perfect competition turns out not to be the case in the real world.
Bullshit. No one has to have a Google account.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
what if someone else is on gmail and refuses to switch?
it's not like google only gets to see their sent mail, you know.
You are not free to "take your information elsewhere" as long as Google Analytics and Google Ads continue to exist. Yes, you can use AdBlock or Privoxy (with manually created custom rules) to opt out of comprehensive Google surveillance, and use the Scroogle Scraper or Duck Duck Go to get "Google quality" search results without creating a comprehensive personal search history at Google - which, among other things, is used by Google to skew your search results toward whatever your personal prejudices are according to your profile. "Just don't use Google" is a fantasy scenario for anyone but a geek.
But if you are a regular customer of a restaurant and they don't have huge staff turnover, they will know who you are and get to know your tastes.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
who in the slashdot organization has google stock, because every story on this site about google invariably spins positive for google
google is the new microsoft. it really is
yet the standard prejudices here on slashdot about microsoft and google on this site seem to be stuck in 2001
(now mod me troll for not towing the slashdot party line)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I deleted my Google+ account yesterday due to this.
Use Chromium, and always use incognito mode. F all the data collection sites.
Only having one policy will make it easier. It's not like it allows then to get something they can't already.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Android phone contracts.
Visits to any site with google analytics at home, work and from mobile.
Use of youtube, including embedded videos.
Use of google docs at work.
No, you really can't use the internet without coming into contact with Google.
Check your premises.
No, I am not free to take my business elsewhere. I still have five months left on my cell phone contract before I am allowed to change to a non-Google service provider such as microsoft or apple.
F Google for changing Android contract terms without giving me a way to decline the contract change except by ME paying a contract termination fee.
Android phone contracts.
Visits to any site with google analytics at home, work and from mobile.
Use of youtube, including embedded videos.
Use of google docs at work.
No, you really can't use the internet without coming into contact with Google.
None of those things are so important to human life that a reasonable person would feel forced to use them.
Well yes, there are interlocking tangles of evil. Of course, the govt. gets a 1-stop shop for your total profile .. for a fee.. to be charged to taxpayers. (I have to admit I never saw that one coming, paying for my own Big Brother services!!)
I just tried to take a different angle, more Media-Private Sector, where there was nothing illegal, only embarassing. Instead of weeks to build a damaging political smear case, just pay $30,000 to Google and crush them inside of four days!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I was discussing the reverse of that. If they pissed you off so bad you never want to return, they don't do reverse-lookups to beg you to come back. ... Not yet!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
https://www.torproject.org/ for some things? Sure, if you log into your email and you automatically give up the ID, but if you're searching and browsing through TOR, wouldn't that defeat many of the tracking bugaboos?
The only problem with you keeping your email with Yahoo is that Yahoo's future doesn't look very bright. Of course, they are still either the #2 or #3 webmail provider, so that's got to be worth something; maybe they'll spin that off as the rest of the company goes down the drain.
I want to stop using Gmail, please suggest some better alternatives.
Hmm. I'd already thought about switching to Bing for search for just this reason when I heard about this. I already moved to Diaspora for networking and general time wasting. My Gmail account is much stickier - since I've got lots of stuff coming there - than my search engine, so effectively if I want to get away from this I have to switch to Bing. And I doubt I'm more valuable as a Gmail customer than as a search customer. I'm sure this will only have a marginal effect on them - FB seems to still be doing fine and they're much worse on privacy, so clearly most people don't really care - but this could hurt their search business.
I just moved my bank account to a small bank, and I started to think about what I'd need to do to move away from Yahoo mail and Gmail, and that's actually much more painful, since I've had the Yahoo account, for example, since 1996... I guess they are going to make me figure this out. What a PITA.
I'm frankly astonished at the lack of intelligence and discernment shown by most people regarding the real threat from google. In particular, I'm nonplussed at the stupidity -- probably more like naivete combined with fundamental inability to extrapolate from trends -- evidenced by most on slashdot. Most of you guys are probably in the top 5% in terms of raw intelligence; it is past time you started demonstrating some of that. Or is it that case that many of the Google apologists on this board actually work for Google or are otherwise compromised?? NDAA was joyfully signed into law on Dec 31, 2011 by Obama. US citizens can now be "disappeared" without legal recourse for vaguely worded reasons which, given the history of how government works, will naturally morph into no reason at all. Other laws, such as SOPA, etc. are on the way, just as fast and successively as our Masters in Washington can sneak or cram them down our throats or up our butts. If you aren't following those developments, you should be -- it is not often you get an inside track to the building of the most dangerous police state the world has ever seen ... by several orders of magnitude or more. Last year, Obama demonstrated that he can assassinate US citizens who have never even been charged with a crime. So much for that "Nobel Peace Prize". Most of the 4th Amendment was nullified with the propagandistically named PATRIOT Act some years ago and with more roars of approval than whimpers from the population. We are NOW living in a police state far more than in a Republic. We are already here. And the power of the police state is growing at an accelerating rate. Resistance is minimal and under pervasive and systematic subversion. Too much profit opportunity, I guess. I heard IBM and other American companies similarly facilitated the building of the Third Reich and its concentration camps.
Google is compelled to comply with government mandates to turn over pretty much any information it has about anyone at any time. A simple government request is enough -- no judge-issued search warrant is required. Once again, this is a trend which is well underway; if your google information isn't routinely shared with the government yet, just wait another year or two.
But Google has almost unimaginable power in America. And let's be clear, GOOGLE **IS** THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR GOOGLE AS THE THIRD REICH WAS THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED FOR THE THIRD REICH. So, the people work for google are building the infrastructure for a totalitarian police state of nightmare scope. Oh, sure, they are going to say something lame like "guns don't kill people, only people kill people." But you don't supply a gun to an obvious psychopath and you don't aim it at a child. Oh, but Google does! Knowingly. Systematically. Ruthlessly.
Google started off providing search with no ads. Harmless! Since then, they have systematically and cunningly grown like a cancer across the social world ... or is it more apt to compare them to VD, since the spread is so joyful and voluntary on the part of most of the carriers?? Everyone thinks about search and mail, but most miss the bigger picture. Google has infected your phone. They fly over your house regularly and PHOTOGRAPH you. They drive down your street so they can be sure to have frontal shots. The were caught systematically recording specifics of your internet connection to specifically tie your computer to your home address and LIED about these "drive by shootings" being an "accident" (like they "accidentally" outfitted their vehicles with this snooping capability and "accidentally" set up their databases to retain this information). Now they have gotten a foothold in social media with Google+ and are in the trusted payment business (I recently signed up for a seminar only to find that the host had turned me over to Google). It doesn't even matter if you don't use any Google services (although that is hard bordering on impossible to avoid) since if any of your friends use gmail or have an
Moving to a small bank or credit union actually has serious advantages over a big bank: lower or no fees, far better customer service, plus of course not helping a clearly evil entity to profit (evil is seen in what they've done to the nation's economy, plus their raping of customers with ridiculous fees).
With search engines and privacy, I just don't see how Google having access to information about you (which they appear to keep fully anonymous, which I wouldn't be so sure of with Facebook), is really such a harmful thing. All they do is use it to direct focused ads at me, and then I rarely see them since I use ABP (with their own Chromium browser!). I actually disabled ABP on Gmail because I really don't mind a single line of text, and sometimes they point me to something quite useful.
>>With search engines and privacy, I just don't see how Google having access to information about you (which they appear to keep fully anonymous, which I wouldn't >>be so sure of with Facebook), is really such a harmful thing
You really think they keep it anonymous? They can easily gleam all your info right out of your Gmail, web searches, contact list, youtube account, etc.
Think about it. Police want to know who posted that video of them beating the crap outta someone. THey go to google. Google queries all infor based off the youtube account you created or already had to post the video. It may link to Gmail whose contents are subpeona-ed. The phone number you used to create the account is also taken (what, you don't think they keep this on record? Its 10 lousy bytes of data.) Cops trace the number to your house or even your cell phone. Use google voice? Then they can monitor all your calls till they find you. USe Google NAV to find your way? They now have your GPS data also.
There is NO ANONYMITY with google. Period!!! To think otherwise naive at best.
Current practice is no guarrantee of future behavior. I think my realization is that for the privacy I want, I'll really need to keep my own email... this isn't necessarily the only reason, just the tipping point. I may also need to do other things with my phone. But as others have noted, this area is just too lucrative for Google to keep this data anonymous forever - some time there will be a management change that will want to do this to make money. I understand Google isn't there now, but the longer I stay with them for Gmail the more inconvenient the eventual switch will be when I have to do it.