TechNotes #10: Google's New Privacy Policy
Written by Matthew Stein Friday, 27 January 2012 03:46
There have been more than a few items in the news lately about Google's new privacy policy. Most of them have made it out to be a power grab or the end of privacy. In truth, it's neither.
Search Is King
First, some background. Google started with search. Then they expanded. They bought up a number of companies and sites (YouTube being about the biggest) and started offerring new services besides just search, like email, office applications, and now social networking, just to name a few.
But make no mistake, Google's bread and butter is still search, and the advertising revenue they get from it. All the other things they do and services they offer? They're there to improve their ability to search. Email, translations, voicemail, and social networking: they're all data for the servers to chew on and figure out what results should show up in a search.
Now, with all those different services cobbled together, Google's various sites had a lot of different rules. When they'd open a new service or acquire a new site, they had a whole new privacy policy and terms of service. With all that Google's been up to, that's a lot of different rules to keep track of.
Simplicity
The primary driver behind Google's new consolidated privacy policy and terms of service is simplicity. Instead of having loads of documents, all spread out and written in legalese, they decided to have one document, written in plain language, to cover all of their services. You can click on the link above to read it. You won't even need a lawyer.
This does provide a certain advantage to users: you'll no longer have to go hunting through long documents on a bunch of sites trying to understand what Google's doing with your data. But the main advantage is for Google, because it simplifies their job, and makes it easier for them to use your data across all their properties.
But What About Privacy?
As seems to happen any time a new privacy policy is release, there's plenty of indignation and speculation that our privacy is being eroded. However, those who report it that way would do well to read the actual document.
It should come as no surprise that Google wants to make use of users' data to improve their services. After all, Google does search. Everything they do is about searching anything they can get their hands on. All they're doing now is combining those sources of data into a big machine that'll churn through it all. And isn't that just what Facebook does every time you post, well, anything? And Twitter? And Microsoft's Bing?
The other concern being voiced has to do with their collection of data. The fear seems to be that now Google will know everything about us. If that's the case, it's no more true now than it was before. Google tries to index everything public on the web, so why wouldn't they want to index content on their own sites?
And nowhere in their new policy does it say that now all your private information is going to be made public. In fact, the new policy contains no fewer than five links to ways you can control how Google uses your information and who can see it. And most of the language having to do with private information deals specifically with things you post youself with the intent that it be made public. Can we really complain when Google wants to search what we post on the Internet for all to see?
Let's Take A Breath
There are certainly privacy implications here. University studies have shown that "anonymized" data can actually still be used to identify people, though that process is not trivial. And if you're worried about one company having so much of your information, then maybe you'll want to reconsider whether you use Google for all it can do.
But the biggest threat to privacy isn't the new privacy policy. It's the same dilemma we've been facing right along: how much information do we really want to put out there for the world to see? It's the same question we need to ask when we post on Facebook, or Twitter, or MySpace, or any of the other countless social media sites out there. If your biggest concern is making sure that your data never ends up in anyone else's hands, the best thing you can do is never let it touch the keyboard.
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