Google Will Simplify Privacy Policy in New Update
Google has said it will update its privacy policy to make it easier to understand.
Privacy and Google are two words that often incite a debate as to how Google uses our personal data. In an attempt to quell the concerns of those worried about their privacy, Google has announced that it will simplify its privacy policy to make it more transparent and easier to understand. Though the search giant was quick to clarify that it's not actually making changes to the policy itself, the company also said it would delete a number of product-specific policies.
"Most of our products and services are covered by our main Google Privacy Policy," writes Mike Yang, Associate General Counsel at Google. "Some, however, also have their own supplementary individual policies," he continues. "Since there is a lot of repetition, we are deleting 12 of these product-specific policies. These changes are also in line with the way information is used between certain products—for example, 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."
Yang goes on to say that the main Google Privacy Policy will also see some changes. This includes the deletion or rewriting of bits that are either redundant or too legalistic.
"For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, 'The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,' since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies."
Google is also adding content to its product Help Centers so people will be able to find information about protecting their privacy more easily, and adding a new privacy tools page to the Google Privacy center.
The changes will take effect on October 3.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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back_by_demand Google's new privacy policy simplified, now consists of 7 words.Reply
All your information are belong to us
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theoutbound Instead of deleting legalese to make it easier to understand, why don't they just make their privacy policy more, um ... private?Reply -
Stifle When you click on the privacy policy link, that is when Sauron's all-seeing eye knows where you are.Reply -
mayne92 I'm not too concerned really. Besides, who reads these "terms of agreements" and "privacy policies" that are ridiculously long? Apple's for example is 56 pages long. NOTHING is ever truly private from what anybody tries to spell out to us...Reply -
NotYetRated haha no matter what they spell out I will not believe them. Not only them but any company really...Reply -
babachoo Deleting legalistic sections of their privacy policy is not to make things easier to understand, it's to allow them to invade your privacy even more effectively, without worrying about legal backlash. The Bush administration did this by instituting the Patriot Act, because they couldn't just delete parts of the Constitution. But Google can just delete sections of their policies because (on the surface) they are a private corporation. Most of us know better than to think that they have no affiliation with the intelligence communities of our government though. Contractors break every law in the book by proxy and are given immunity and billions of dollars for their services. That's the american way.Reply