Google revising privacy policies, data use
Photo: Reuters
Google said Tuesday it is revising its privacy policies and changing how it uses data from users of its services to provide more personalized search results and advertisements. The Mountain View, California-based Internet giant said the changes are designed to improve the user experience across the various Google products, which range from Web search to Gmail to Google+ to YouTube. Google said it is combining more than 60 privacy policies for its various services into a single policy that will take effect from March 1. "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," Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, product and engineering, said in a blog post. "We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy practices as well as enable Google to improve the services we offer," she said. Google noted that "regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies" and said it would inform users of the changes by email and with a notice on the Google.com home page. Google has found itself under increasing scrutiny from European and US regulators as it has grown from a scrappy startup into an Internet titan, branching out into various businesses including online mapping, shopping and travel and providing software for mobile phones and tablet computers. The changes to Google's privacy policies are certain to draw further attention in Washington and Brussels and announcing them more than a month ahead of time appeared to be a bid to provide time for them to be digested. Whitten said instead of having terms of service for individual products, Google was revising its terms of service to cover numerous products. Google account users will have to accept the new terms of service to continue using their accounts. The main change announced Tuesday involves users who have Google accounts. "If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," Whitten said. "In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience," Whitten said.
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