Is Google Dashboard Really Transparent or a PR Stunt?

A new product that gives users a new level of insight into what the world's biggest search engine knows about them was launched Thursday. Google Dashboard lets users see reports on the data Google has collected on them.

In a blog post, Google said the Dashboard is an improvement on past efforts like the Privacy Center to give users access to retained information. Dashboard is "an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control ... (and) designed to be simple and useful," the posting said.

"The Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings," Google wrote. At launch, Dashboard included 20 Google products, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk and Reader.

Privacy Settings Hard to Find

While Dashboard offers a new level of user access to their data, it's also raising privacy concerns about how secure the service is. "If you want to make that stuff private -- or just find out if it's even possible to make it private -- you have to go deep into the settings of each Google app. If you don't already know where to go to change this setting, you may not get there," complained Robert X. Cringley on InfoWorld.

Google's programs contain scads of potentially damaging information about users. For instance, an article on the Dumb Little Man site details how a burglar could easily discover when a Google Calendar user is away from home just by looking at a public calendar and using a few easy research techniques. The author details his pursuit of one user like this:

"In literally 20 minutes, I now know the name, address, phone number, and schedule of this woman. If I can do it, you can be ... sure the real bad guys can. Please be smarter about what you share online. If given a choice, choose the private setting. If you are not given a choice, either choose a new calendar or talk in some code that only you understand. I guess I just don't understand why people set themselves up to become victims."

Dashboard is still too difficult to use to provide meaningful controls to users, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, a San Francisco security and auditing firm. "While the new Dashboard feature lets you see all your Google services in a single page, it has a far way to go before it could be your Google privacy Rosetta Stone," Storms said. "Users still need to click through into each and every product to change their settings. And determining what data is publicly viewable is shown by a subtle graphic of three persons' heads."

'A Little Light'

Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, praised Google's tool as a good first step and long overdue. "Google has said that they want to give the user control, but this is the first time that we've really seen them organize that control over privacy-sensitive information," Schwartz said.

But Consumer Watchdog found laughable the idea that Google Dashboard provides all the transparency users want. "Google is maximizing the PR value of this feature in response to critics who have demanded online privacy guarantees," consumer advocate John Simpson said. "They are letting a little light shine into the black box that is Google, but to claim that this is transparency is absurd."