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."

Comments

Hmm

[Anrego]

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.

It's not a policy change, just education

[swillden]

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.]

Re:It's not a policy change, just education

[swillden]

Oh, I was also going to mention that only two points in the policy document surprised me, and both in a good way.

The first is that Google does not aggregate DoubleClick tracking data with all of the rest, unless you specifically opt-in to that tracking. Personally, I think Google's personalization is useful enough to me that I will probably track down that opt-in setting and turn it on, but I'm surprised that it's not on by default.

The second thing is that while I'd always believed that Google kept all of the data in-house, and didn't sell any of it, I hadn't ever seen a commitment in writing to that effect. After starting work for Google early last year I quickly realized that the company would have to change dramatically before they'd ever sell user information, because there's a strong sentiment -- arrogance probably isn't too strong a word -- that no one else would use it as effectively as Google, so selling it would be a waste. There's also a strong sentiment that no one else would be as responsible with it.

Anyway, it's nice to see Google commit to not selling user data. I'd like to see a similar commitment from Facebook.

Re:It's not a policy change, just education

[swillden]

Spending money on a media blitz to make sure that everyone knows how you're watching them is going above and beyond.

Hmmm, now I'm suspicious... wait a minute...

What makes you suspicious?

Actually, I know what makes you suspicious, and it's a common problem for Google. Everyone thinks that no corporation can ever do anything that appears good for the public and costly to the company unless there's some hidden profit motive. Since Google not infrequently does things that are good for the public and costly to the company with no hidden profit motive other than building long-term goodwill, people get intensely suspicious, certain that there must be more than meets the eye... and since the company is clearly trying to hide whatever that something is, it must be something really nefarious.

But the truth is simpler: Thought Google screws up from time to time, it generally does try to be a good citizen, and up front about its motives and methods.

[Disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer.

Ah, now I get it.

That doesn't mean what you think it means. Like most engineers (and especially security engineers), I'm fairly suspicious of corporate skullduggery, and protective of on-line privacy. Like most Google engineers, I'm capable enough that I could easily work elsewhere if I felt like my talents were being put to evil uses. And as a recent hire, it's not like I have much of my net worth tied up in Google stock (I have a few shares that were given to me as a signing bonus), so I really have no motivation to shill for the company, even if I were dumb enough to think my posts on slashdot could affect the stock price.

So, again, what I post is the simple truth as I see it. There's no doubt that I have a positive bias towards Google, but that bias arises not from the fact that they deposit my bi-weekly paycheck, but because I see a lot of what Google does from the inside -- and it impresses me.

Re:evil is as evil does

[Anonymous Coward]

Just treat their services as separate companies. Use different e-mail addresses to register Google+, YouTube, Gmail, whatever else you use. Use that one thing and then close your browser (with 'delete cookies when closing' checked).

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't use the IP address to identify you, especially with so many people accessing behind work NAT. With dial-up going away, people are holding on to an IP longer, but it's not guaranteed.

I actually have 2 youtube accounts. One is the one where I watch funny stuff, the other is for music/arts. That way the recommendations are pretty good. Random articles get the anonymous visitor. Sign in, watch a playlist, close the browser. I even use different browsers, like GMail uses Chrome, YouTube gets FireFox.

They want to track me, to sell things to me. I want them to know I'm not a single person, I have different preferences depending on the day or what mood I'm in. I figure I'm being more honest with them than most people are, even if they think I'm 3 or 4 different people.

Re:big difference

[tripleevenfall]

Every sentence in this should be prefaced with "Today". Today that's true, but they are clearly trying to take over the market Facebook has monopolized, and the information is no good without selling it.

I know Google is beloved by groupthink here, but if people think they wouldn't love to do what Facebook is doing, you're fooling yourselves.

what i want to know is

[circletimessquare]

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)