The leader in search engines Google announced last Tuesday it is combining information from several of its services once a user account holder signs in as part of its newly rewritten privacy policies.
The new online functionality will provide a better integrated product with a more focused targeted service, according to Google. For instance, with a combined information from Google Maps and Google Calendar, users can have schedule reminders that also present how far the user is from the meeting destination and how the traffic situation is developing along the route. This was disclosed by Google’s director of privacy products and engineering, Alma Whitten, in her blog post last Tuesday.
Google also announced that the service enhancement will start effective March 1st and is informing users about the change through emails and notices to a homepage. They are included as part of a major overhaul of Google’s privacy policy where Google took more than 70 privacy-related documents and merged more than 60 documents into the main policy. Whitten also posted that Google has trimmed down its Terms of Service agreements and made them more user-friendly to read.
According to Whitten, “We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy policies as well as enable Google to improve the services we offer.” On top of that, she said the government has been calling for revising and simplifying its privacy rules.
When completed, the new policy is nothing less than a significant revision, according to Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum where she sits as executive director to the nonprofit public-focused research firm based in San Diego.
“This is a different privacy policy,” Dixon added. “It’s finally a bit clearer about what they are doing. I think they’re making more admissions.” For instance, while the old policy leaned more towards legal defensibility when talking about gathering data like cellphone numbers, the new policy is more consumer-centric. Privacy has always been a sensitive issue for users of online services as they accumulate information about them.
Whitten mentioned the recent “Search, plus Your World” feature which exemplifies Google’s effort to combine information across several services. Released early this month, the feature allows Google Account holders to see posts from their friends in Google+ right along the search results from Google’s home page.
