If an organization has news that it doesn’t actually want people to notice all that much, it tends to issue the press release late on a Friday afternoon. If that organization is Google, apparently the time to release it is at the same time as Apple’s gaudy earnings report. Google is updating its privacy policy and kind of shrinking the actual amount of privacy you have.
The new privacy policy makes clear that for people logged into a Google account, Google can use information shared on one service in other Google services.
“If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy for product and engineering, wrote in a company blog post. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”
The privacy argument against this is now that everything you do on one Google product is provided to every other Google product, you’re just being watched and analyzed a lot more. The things I view on YouTube will affect my search results and advertising on Search, the things I look up on Google Maps will influence my Google+ account.
The changes take effect on March 1st, Google says it will send out emails to users explaining the changes and how totally awesome they are for everyone.
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