Google has decided to unify all 60 of its services under one umbrella privacy policy. Records of searches done on Android phones, the Internet and YouTube will be combined to create ultra-personalized advertising. Users won't be able to opt out of the policy, although web browsing history settings can be changed to avert the use of web browsing statistics for advertising purposes.
This new move by Google is just one of several over the past three years that has drawn scrutiny from regulators and tech users.
Google Buzz
Google created a new service called Buzz which allowed users to share recent activity with contacts in Gmail. Fox News reported users suddenly found all of their contacts were lumped together and were told what certain users had done over the Internet. Some of the lists of contacts were made public.
Google settled a class action lawsuit out of court. The company promised to set aside $8.5 million to address privacy concerns and promote education. The Huffington Post stated Google must also submit regular privacy audits every two years to the Federal Trade Commission as part of the lawsuit.
Street View
Google Street View allows users of Google Maps to see what a map would look like at street level. Specially outfitted cars cruised through neighborhoods and down highways to snap pictures atop the vehicle as it travels along.
One way Google was able to save the data was that it linked up with wireless networks along the journey. At one point, these wireless networks exposed private information of unsecured network users, according to the Telegraph in May 2010. Countries such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia all criticized the company's use of the roving vehicles and demanded the eradication of the private information inadvertently shared with Google.
The Federal Communications Commission investigated the breach in the United States. That was a month after the Federal Trade Commission ended its own probe into the exposure of private accounts to Google users.
Android Tracking
Around the same time of the street view incident, users of smartphones with the Android operating system filed a class action lawsuit in Detroit for $50 million. At issue was the possibility of cell phone users' location information being hacked into because Google collects the location data of the phone several times per hour. Ars Technica states much of the data collected is unencrypted and was vulnerable to possible hacks.
New Controversy
The newest controversy comes as users of Google services must perform several functions such as clearing a web browser's cache data in order to prevent the web service from tracking information. The change was also made just as Google's financial information was disclosed for the last quarter of 2011. The earnings disappointed investors as revenue dipped below what was forecast for the first time in months. The Internet search giant is seeking an advantage to earn more income in 2012 and the move to unify all of its products under one privacy policy is seen as a way to easily do just that.
William Browning is a research librarian.
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