By Janet Maragioglio | Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:58 am |
Google will share user information across its websites and services under its new privacy policy, sparking further scrutiny into how the company protects personal data.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company announced Tuesday in a blog post it plans to roll out its new privacy policy March 1, combining information it collects about each user of its sites and services into a single profile. Google is alerting hundreds of millions of users to the change via e-mail and its homepage.Google currently has more than 70 privacy policies for its individual products, and users must read and agree to a new set of terms and conditions each time they sign up for a Google service. Under the new rules, users will sign up once, and the policy will apply to nearly all Google services, including search, YouTube, Gmail, Google+, Picasa, and the Android operating system. The company says the change will provide users a simpler, more consistent Google experience, but critics of the new policy stress it could also make user information accessible across sites and platforms. For example, users who look for skateboards on Google's search engine could find recommendations for Tony Hawk videos the next time they visit YouTube, according to the Washington Post. Google maintains it made the change to satisfy global regulators' calls for simplicity, which are calling for increasingly transparent and easy-to-understand privacy policies. Google recently agreed to 20-year monitoring of its privacy practices in a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and is also under close scrutiny in Europe. However, Google's privacy change signals bigger ambitions as well. By sharing user information across its dozens of sites and services, Google, in effect, makes its entire operation one big social media enterprise. The move mirrors similar strategies of Google's major competitors. As social media-giant Facebook grows ever larger and prepares for its highly anticipated IPO this year, it will integrate dozens of apps that allow users to share tastes in music, food, books, and videos, tell others about places they've visited and products they've bought or want, and share other personal information. By uniting its offerings under a single privacy policy, Google could gain an edge against Facebook, making its services and sites more integrated and encourage free information sharing between users. In the process, the company will also learn more about its users' tastes and preferences, which in turn will help the company generate more advertising revenue. The privacy policy announcement follows news of Google's new search features, called "Search plus Your World," which allow users to include information from their connections on Google+ in search results, another example of how the company plans to combine information across products. Google's combined changes will likely continue ignite criticism over whether the Internet giant is getting too big and owns too big a share of people's online identities. The new privacy policy is shorter and easier to understand, but how much information it makes public in the name of improved privacy might surprise users.
|
] |
CellReception.com |
CellRisk.com |
Appedia.com |
Tabletedia.com
[ 
] |
iTVedia.com