07 September 2010 | Author: J. Morton News Editor
Google has gone over its privacy policies and 'simplified' the language and practices in recent days, possibly in reaction to increased scrutiny on the company for harvesting personal information.
Most visibly, the website and consumer advocacy group ConsumerWatchdog.org hired out a video billboard in New York's Times Square to lampoon CEO Eric Schmidt, claiming the Google co-founder had his sights set on users' personal information.
The search seraph said the moves were about being more up-front with its users.
"To be clear, we aren't changing any of our privacy practices; we want to make our policies more transparent and understandable," according to Google associate general counsel Mike Yang.
The biggest change will reportedly be a uniform policy between Google services, eliminating the product-specific policies the company previously utilised.
"These changes are also in line with the way information is used between certain products," Yang wrote in an official blog posting. "Since contacts are shared between services like Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs, it makes sense for those services to be governed by one privacy policy as well."
According to Yang, the product-specific privacy pages previously directed users, when working with affiliated, non-Google sites, to peruse the outside sites' privacy policies as well. However, this passage will now be deleted.
"It seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies," Yang said.
Google has taken heat in recent months, most notably with its questionable methods when collecting Street View information which led to privacy breaches, including harvesting information from unsecured wireless networks.
As a result, Google faced litigation from several countries where the breaches occurred.
In addition, the Mountain View company recently settled a court case filed by outraged Gmail users who alleged their privacy was breached upon the release of Buzz, which automatically signed users of Google's email service to a social network akin to Twitter.
Google tweaks privacy policy after consumer watchdog call-out
Google has gone over its privacy policies and 'simplified' the language and practices in recent days, possibly in reaction to increased scrutiny on the company for harvesting personal information.Most visibly, the website and consumer advocacy group ConsumerWatchdog.org hired out a video billboard in New York's Times Square to lampoon CEO Eric Schmidt, claiming the Google co-founder had his sights set on users' personal information.
The search seraph said the moves were about being more up-front with its users.
"To be clear, we aren't changing any of our privacy practices; we want to make our policies more transparent and understandable," according to Google associate general counsel Mike Yang.
The biggest change will reportedly be a uniform policy between Google services, eliminating the product-specific policies the company previously utilised.
"These changes are also in line with the way information is used between certain products," Yang wrote in an official blog posting. "Since contacts are shared between services like Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs, it makes sense for those services to be governed by one privacy policy as well."
According to Yang, the product-specific privacy pages previously directed users, when working with affiliated, non-Google sites, to peruse the outside sites' privacy policies as well. However, this passage will now be deleted.
"It seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies," Yang said.
Google has taken heat in recent months, most notably with its questionable methods when collecting Street View information which led to privacy breaches, including harvesting information from unsecured wireless networks.
As a result, Google faced litigation from several countries where the breaches occurred.
In addition, the Mountain View company recently settled a court case filed by outraged Gmail users who alleged their privacy was breached upon the release of Buzz, which automatically signed users of Google's email service to a social network akin to Twitter.
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