Slashdot Mirror
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."
I thought they did that regardless of you being signed in or not.. maybe that's the way they used to do it? with cookies, but perhaps that would have soon been illegal in some locales, whereas using your signed in information is not?
the question again is does the tracking end when you log out.
The privacy policy is pretty clear, I think. Yes they use cookies to track you even when you're not signed in, and they try to connect that with you when you do sign in. If you want to ensure Google never tracks you, you can opt out using their privacy tools. That will install a "do not track" cookie which will cause Google to discard all of that data, except where they aggregate it into statistics that are in no way connectable to you. Unfortunately, various actions can cause that "do not track" cookie to be lost, so if you want to be really sure install Google's "keep my opt outs" extension, which will ensure the cookie is always present.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
the question again is does the tracking end when you log out.
Yes, Google tracks you all over the place
But you can Opt-Out
http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/html/intl/en/plugin/
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
That's not actually true. There's a box you can uncheck on the initial signup page that allows you to opt out of creating a profile, and, further, even if you create one, you can immediately delete it.
But yes, Slashdot did report, falsely, that very allegation earlier today, and it rather emphasizes my point: a lot of bogus negative stories about a company that's made a lot of enemies lately.
Can we limit criticizing Google to things it actually does, for example, it's awful search engine?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.