Google Updates Privacy Policy: Tracks Users’ History Across Sites

Privacy policies and terms of service are things that most of us don’t pay much attention to when we sign up for a service on the web, given the clunky legal jargon and huge length of such documents, but Google wants to draw our attention to changes to their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. They’ve announced yesterday that they are reducing the number of privacy policies that they have from 70 down to one main privacy policy, but with some other policies remaining for legal reasons.

The news was announced on the Official Google Blog, which explained the reasoning behind the changes: “We’re rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way.”

The main change is that if you’re signed into a Google Account, then they will track your movements across their sites, which may disgruntle and worry some people. Naturally enough, users will have their concerns about the information that Google collects on them, and what happens to that information. But Google aims to present this as a positive change – an improved, easier browsing experience that is tailored to each user:

“Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

They maintain that their Privacy Principles have not changed, and that the changes will mean a smarter Google that will give you better search results, tailored to you, based on information collected on the other Google sites. But this may have the effect of narrowing your horizons of what you  see on the web, with Google dicating what they deem to be relevant to you, it kind of takes the fun out of stumbling around sites hoping to find something new and different.

The updated policy and terms will come into effect for all Google users from March 1st 2012, although the changes are not likely to be obvious to your browsing experience – as all the work is going on behind the scenes – unless a spot-on search result makes you think “Yes this is exactly what I’m looking for – how did they know?”

And the answer is they know because they are following your every move on their sites. Google suggest that if you don’t like these changes then don’t use Google, but they also list ways you can change certain settings relating to privacy in the preview of the new policy such as viewing and editing your ads preferences, using Google Dashboard to review and control information linked to your account, setting your browser to block cookies, and taking information out of some of Google’s services.

It will be interesting to see how users respond to the changes, do people care enough about online monitoring to educate themselves about the changes? The changes could come and go largely unnoticed and uncontested, or perhaps there could be a repeat of the furore about privacy that surrounded Google Buzz – no doubt Google will be hoping for the former. But already there has been negative response to the changes, with The Guardian reporting that “ Google could log browsing habits on YouTube or Google+ to sell targeted ads in Gmail or search.”