Google announced yesterday that it intends to make drastic changes to its privacy policy that will take effect on March 1. Users are being told of the changes through emails and a notice on the Google home page. The changes have been outlined in a blog post by Google privacy director Alma Whitten, who generally gives the changes a positive spin while glossing over the possible abuses.
The basic change to Google’s privacy policy is that Google can now use any information it gathers from one of its services to better personalize another, as well as target you for ads. For example, say you receive regular emails about diabetic recipes in your Gmail account. When you go to do a web search and type in “medications,” Google can pull the information from your email and automatically refine your search to medications for diabetes.
While this may be a plus in functionality, it also means that Google has unprecedented access to information it can use to tailor ads directly to you.
The changes seem minor on their face — in fact they are very close to policies put into place by Facebook and other social media sites — but the changes still have some users up in arms, even using harsh words like “Orwellian” and “Big Brother” to describe this new policy. Many are upset that there is no way to “opt out” of the new privacy agreement.
“There is no way anyone expected this.” said Center for Digital Democracy’s executive director Jeffrey Chester in an interview with the Washington Post.
To assess fears, Google’s blog post has re-iterated that Google will not sell your information to third parties, or indeed share it with anyone without consent except in rare cases involving a court order.
Only time will tell whether the added functionality will compensate for the invasion of privacy in the minds of Google users.