Health & Fitness
Google is Changing Their Privacy Policy and Why You Might Care
Google is changing their privacy policy, how does this affect you? If you are a frequent user of Gmail, YouTube or many of the other Google services you may want to read on.
Last week Google announced they were changing their privacy policy across most of their websites and services. This announcement sent privacy rights groups buzzing with concern over how much information Google was going to have in one place, and how much they know about you.
Everyone knows about Google search, with over one billion searches done every day. In addition, over 90 million people the social networking site Google+ and 190 million use Gmail. Hundreds of millions more use Google Maps, YouTube, and Picasa every day to find places and share videos and pictures. This all adds up to a lot of people giving Google a lot of information as to what they look for, where they go, what they watch, and what they like to do.
Until now, all this information has been kept separated at Google because each website had its own privacy policy (60 different policies in all). This meant that while Google might know your searches and YouTube viewing choices, Google was not able to consolidate your activity into one place. With the new privacy policy changes this will all change.
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Why is Google doing this? The answer is simple: Google makes money by advertising and the better they can know what you like, where you are and what you do, the better they can target you with ads that will get you to click on them. The more you click, the more money Google makes. It’s pretty much that easy.
Google would argue that it is not just about revenue. Rather, they would say that with all this information they will be able to better serve you. Knowing from Google Calendar that you have a meeting in 30 minutes and you are 15 miles way, Google will be able to remind you about the meeting, let you know the best route via Goggle Maps to avoid traffic and, based on your comments in Google+, also remind you to stop at your favorite coffee shop along the way and grab a cup for the meeting.
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In the end, does it matter that Google has all this information about you? If you believe Google’s only goal is to serve you better then maybe not. However, if the thought that Google will know a lot more about you than most of your friends bothers you, then maybe it’s time to cancel those Google accounts.
