Tag: Privacy Policy

WhatsApp Begins Sharing Data with Facebook

In a reversal of previous pledges, WhatsApp is going to begin sharing data with Facebook in order to connect accounts, detect spam and improve ad targeting. This includes sharing your phone number and usage information for Facebook’s internal use, but not sharing any actual texts, since they are encrypted and neither Facebook or What’s has access to them.

WhatsApp is giving existing users 30 days to grandfather themselves into not sharing their data with Facebook. After that all users will be subject to their new Terms and Privacy Policy.

Here’s how WhatsApp describes the sharing of data with Facebook in the new Terms:

We joined the Facebook family of companies in 2014. As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings. This includes helping improve infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our Services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.

Facebook and the other companies in the Facebook family also may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services such as making product suggestions (for example, of friends or connections, or of interesting content) and showing relevant offers and ads. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be shared onto Facebook for others to see. In fact, Facebook will not use your WhatsApp messages for any purpose other than to assist us in operating and providing our Services.

WhatsApp is seeking new ways for its users, especially businesses, to utilize WhatsApp which will open up additional magnetization opportunities in the future. They are exploring the use of WhatsApp in business transactions with customers related to online orders and sales, appointments and reservations, delivery and shipping notifications, business updates to customers related to their products and services as well as integrating WhatsApp in company marketing.

“For example, you may receive flight status information for upcoming travel, a receipt for something you purchased, or a notification when a delivery will be made,” posted WhatsApp. “Messages you may receive containing marketing could include an offer for something that might interest you. We do not want you to have a spammy experience; as with all of your messages, you can manage these communications, and we will honor the choices you make.”

“But as we announced earlier this year, we want to explore ways for you to communicate with businesses that matter to you too, while still giving you an experience without third-party banner ads and spam,” added WhatsApp.”Whether it’s hearing from your bank about a potentially fraudulent transaction, or getting notified by an airline about a delayed flight, many of us get this information elsewhere, including in text messages and phone calls. We want to test these features in the next several months, but need to update our terms and privacy policy to do so.”

“We’re also updating these documents to make clear that we’ve rolled out end-to-end encryption,” they said. “When you and the people you message are using the latest version of WhatsApp, your messages are encrypted by default, which means you’re the only people who can read them. Even as we coordinate more with Facebook in the months ahead, your encrypted messages stay private and no one else can read them. Not WhatsApp, not Facebook, nor anyone else. We won’t post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook, and we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number to advertisers.”

“But by coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp,” the company stated. “And by connecting your phone number with Facebook’s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them. For example, you might see an ad from a company you already work with, rather than one from someone you’ve never heard of.”

August 25, 2016
New Snapchat Terms Should Scare You … If You’re Unfamiliar with Social Media Terms

Snapchat just unveiled a new privacy policy and Terms of Service, and since about 10% of your snaps are dick pics, you’re likely concerned. A lot of people are. Here, look. And here.

Scary? Sure, if you’re not familiar with any other social media terms agreement. Snapchat now gives itself “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”

As does Instagram, Facebook, and most other social networks and messaging services.

Let’s back up, though. Here’s Snapchat’s new terms of service, and what has people up in arms:

Many of our Services let you create, upload, post, send, receive, and store content. When you do that, you retain whatever ownership rights in that content you had to begin with.

But you grant Snapchat a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). We will use this license for the limited purpose of operating, developing, providing, promoting, and improving the Services; researching and developing new ones; and making content submitted through the Services available to our business partners for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication outside the Services. Some Services offer you tools to control who can—and cannot—see your content under this license. For more information about how to tailor who can watch your content, please take a look at our privacy policy and support site.

To the extent it’s necessary, you also grant Snapchat and our business partners the unrestricted, worldwide, perpetual right and license to use your name, likeness, and voice in any and all media and distribution channels (now known or later developed) in connection with any Live Story or other crowd-sourced content you create, upload, post, send, or appear in. This means, among other things, that you will not be entitled to any compensation from Snapchat or our business partners if your name, likeness, or voice is conveyed through the Services.

And here’s what Snapchat’s Terms of Service looked like before:

You retain all ownership rights in your User Content. However, by submitting User Content to Snapchat, you hereby grant us an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, promote, exhibit, and display such User Content in any and all media or distribution methods, now known or later developed (the “User Content License”), subject to any privacy settings you have set to control who can see your User Content. Without limiting the foregoing, when you submit User Content to Snapchat in connection with Our Stories and other crowd-sourced Stories, you agree that the User Content License accords Snapchat the right to sublicense such User Content to other companies, organizations, or individuals in connection with the syndication, broadcast, distribution, promotion, or publication of Our Stories and other crowd-sourced Stories in any and all media or distribution methods, now known or later developed. No use of User Content, including without limitation, Our Stories and other crowd-sourced Stories, in accordance with the User Content License shall entitle you to any compensation from Snapchat, or any other companies, organizations, or individuals.

So, what changed? For starters, Snapchat added the word “store” when it comes to your content.

Wait, Snapchat is storing your content? Isn’t that the antithesis of what Snapchat is supposed to be?

Is is – well, it was. Remember this from 2013?

“When a snap is viewed and the timer runs out, the app notifies our servers, which in turn notify the sender that the snap has been opened. Once we’ve been notified that a snap has been opened by all of its recipients, it is deleted from our servers. If a snap is still unopened after 30 days, it too is deleted from our servers,” Snapchat said in a blog post.

That’s not really the case anymore. Snapchat has its “stories” feature now, and it allows for replays. It’s also working on sponsored content. Data has to be kept for longer.

The new Terms of Service basically extended Snapchat’s license over your content – from just what you post as your Story to your other, more private snaps to friends.

Is this a big deal? I don’t know, is it a big deal to you? Snapchat’s privacy policy isn’t anything new in the industry. But hey, you’re probably not sharing dick pics on Instagram.

Image via Stephan Mosel, Flickr Creative Commons

October 30, 2015
NTIA Introduces Mobile App Code of Conduct For Privacy

The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) this week announced that its stakeholder partners for an app transparency process will soon begin testing a voluntary code of conduct for mobile app privacy. The code implores app developers to, “where practicable,” provide app users with short form notices about what data an app collects and who it will be shared with.

The image above is one of several examples the NTIA released to show how apps following the code might display such notices.

According to the code, notices should inform app users of data collection from the categories of biometrics; browser history; phone and text logs; contacts; financial information; health, medical, or therapy data; location data; and user files. The sharing notices should cover the categories of ad networks; carriers; consumer data resellers; data analytics providers; government entities; operating systems and platforms; other apps; and social networks.

“NTIA is pleased that today a diverse group of stakeholders reached a seminal milestone in the efforts to enhance consumer privacy on mobile devices,” said Lawrence Strickling, the NTIA administrator. “We encourage all the companies that participated in the discussion to move forward to test the code with their consumers. I want to congratulate all of the participants, who through their commitment and dedication have demonstrated the promise and importance of the multi-stakeholder policy-making process.”

Though Strickling’s statement shows the NTIA is proud to have provided a framework for disclosure in mobile apps, other privacy advocates are calling for stricter privacy measures. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) this week called the NTIA’s code of conduct “modest,” and called on congress to pass “meaningful” consumer privacy protection legislation.

“The American Civil Liberties Union supports this code as a modest but important step forward for consumer privacy,” said Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “It allows applications to compete on privacy and gives consumers a tool to pick the most privacy friendly applications.

“The fact that it took a year to come to agreement on just this single measure, however, makes it clear that we need comprehensive privacy legislation in order to gain meaningful privacy protections for consumers. After all, we should be able to enjoy cool new technologies without giving up our privacy.”

July 26, 2013
Verizon Highlights Its Privacy Policy in the Wake of Windows Phone Rumors

Earlier today rumors surfaced that Windows Phone 8 devices scheduled to be sold and used on Verizon’s network might be delayed or even cancelled. The story is that Verizon wants more access to Windows 8 smartphones, to better collect users’ location and web browsing data, and Microsoft isn’t budging on user privacy.

Though neither Verizon nor Microsoft have verified the rumor, Verizon is attempting to spin things its way by releasing a statement on its privacy policy. The company claims that “protecting customer data and safeguarding privacy have always been top priorities at Verizon.”

Though many of the articles this morning referred to Verizon’s data collection efforts as spyware, the company wants everyone to know that they informed customers before they began collecting their data and that customer data is “de-identified” and then aggregated, so it’s ok. It’s not your data, its everyone’s data. From Verizon’s statement:

In 2011, we announced a number of new programs that will help companies better understand mobile consumers in a more detailed and efficient way. None of the data that is used in this program is personally-identifiable, and we do not sell raw data to third-parties. We are not selling your personal data. At the time these programs were announced, we informed our customers of the changes through updates to our privacy policy and through emails or direct mail, depending on preferences for how they wanted us to communicate these types of changes with them.

One of these programs provides insights into audiences on the move by connecting aggregated demographic, mobile usage, and location data into useful business and marketing reports. To be clear about this, we are aggregating customer data that has already been de-identified, which means none of it is personally identifiable information.

Verizon goes on to state that they use customer information to group people by demographics and interests, such as age, gender, and “tennis enthusiasts.” A profile of everything about a customer, only without the customer’s name. The info is then used to deliver mobile ads as well as other advertising based on the demographics of a geographic region.

The company states that customers can opt-out of these programs through the Verizon website or via phone. That does imply, though, that the data collection is opt-in by default.

Verizon is really splitting hairs here. Sure, the raw data isn’t sold to companies, but they also admit in no uncertain terms that customer demographic info and postal addresses are being used to serve up ads. The fact is, Verizon is making money, one way or another, by collecting data on their subscribers. The company should stop pretending and simply explain to customers (and Microsoft) why personally-tailored ads aren’t necessarily a bad thing.

October 19, 2012
LinkedIn Addresses Mobile Calendar Privacy Concerns

Social networks have been struggling to find a balance on the issue of privacy for years, and LinkedIn is no different. Being the social network for professional networking means privacy is especially important to LinkedIn – careers can be dashed if highly personal information is shared haphazardly. In the past week the company has updated its privacy policy, and today it is addressing some privacy concerns that have been raised about its mobile calendar feature.

With the LinkedIn app for mobile platforms, such as the iPad, users can enable the calendar feature of the app to sync with their mobile device’s calendar and pull in information about the meetings they have scheduled. With the feature enabled, users can view the LinkedIn profiles of the people listed as attending a meeting. While this may seem to be a simple way to remember names and prepare for a meeting, LinkedIn admits that there have been concerns about what the company does with the event information, particularly meeting notes, that it pulls from device calendars.

To alleviate concerns, LinkedIn Mobile Product Head Joff Redfern outlined exactly what the company’s policies are with regards to calendar data. He provided clarity in a blog post over at the LinkedIn Blog:

In order to provide our calendar service to those who choose to use it, we need to send information about your calendar events to our servers so we can match people with LinkedIn profiles. That information is sent securely over SSL and we never share or store your calendar information.

In an effort to make that algorithm for matching people with profiles increasingly smarter we pull the complete calendar event, including email addresses of people you are meeting with, meeting subject, location and meeting notes.

So, while LinkedIn does pull what could be considered sensitive meeting information, Redfern is adamant that the company does not store or share the information with third parties. He also reiterated several times in his post that the calendar sync feature is opt-in, meaning users must explicitly give LinkedIn permission to pull their device’s calendar information.

Redfern stated that LinkedIn has taken immediate action to improve the mobile calendar’s privacy features. “We will no longer send data from the meeting notes section of your calendar event,” said Redfern. Also, a “learn more” link will be provided to better educate users on how the feature uses their calendar data. These changes have already rolled out for the Android version of the LinkedIn app, and the iOS version will be updating soon.

June 6, 2012
LinkedIn Updates its Privacy Policy

LinkedIn, the social network for professional networking, announced this weekend that it will be updating its privacy policy. Starting on Thursday June 7, the company’s Privacy Policy and User Agreement will be updated for clarity and to provide LinkedIn members more control over where their data can be viewed.

Eric Heath, the director of legal for product at LinkedIn, announced the changes in a post over at the LinkedIn Blog. There are two major changes in policy. LinkedIn will now delete personally identifiable information obtained through their plug-ins and off-site advertising after 24 hours. This is likely a reaction to Facebook coming under pressure from European activists regarding its off-site advertising practices. LinkedIn has also “enhanced” its privacy controls by making public profile privacy settings for members also determine the information that can be accessed by search engines and third-party plugins.

“Ensuring more privacy and control over your personal data remains our highest priority,” said Heath. That’s probably the best place for a social network to prioritize privacy. As Facebook has found out in the past few years, privacy is not something that can be overlooked, and social networks have a responsibility to their members to make privacy policy crystal-clear.

The last time LinkedIn updated its privacy policy was almost exactly one year ago. At that time, the company allowed members to opt-out of being mentioned in ads for products they have recommended, and gave members the ability to opt-out of information sharing through LinkedIn’s browser plugins. LinkedIn’s privacy policy can be viewed on its website.

June 4, 2012
Myspace Settles with FTC Over User Privacy

Myspace, the dominant social network before Facebook took over, has just settled with the Federal Trade Commission over user privacy issues, much like Facebook had in November. The FTC contended that Myspace was too vague in its explanation of user privacy, and the network is now prohibited from further instances of this sort of misrepresentation. Myspace also has submitted to 20 years worth of privacy policy checkups in the deal.

Interestingly, Myspace is still a relevant social platform, and was reported to be garnering roughly 40K new users per day as of February, and was still beating out Linkedin and Google+ in regards to unique monthly users. The site saw a boost upon the launch of its new music player, in a bid to become a sort of Hulu for audio, and said player can also be linked to Facebook. Though, the Myspace player doesn’t seem to track song plays accurately, the interface is addled with rampant Flash ads that tend to bring the site to a crawl, and the whole thing at times resembles an overlapping trash heap of content designed by a toddler. But, it still pulls in over 17 million unique users a month.

The FTC had claimed that Myspace was sharing user information without being completely up front about its rules in this regard. Basically, the network “provided advertisers with the Friend ID of users who were viewing particular pages on the site – and [advertisers] could use the Friend ID to locate a user’s Myspace profile to obtain personal information publicly available on the profile and, in most instances, the user’s full name,” according to the FTC. This sort of deception is a violation of federal law. Myspace also allegedly failed to afford its users with an easy Safe Harbor opt-out regarding transfer of data between the U.S. and Europe.

Myspace wasn’t forced to pay any fines, though any new violations could result in a $16K slap on the wrist per each offense. I wonder what Tom thinks of all of this.

May 8, 2012
Google Faces Class-Action Suit: Violation of Privacy

Yes, more complaints over Google’s new privacy policy. This time they come from consumers in New York and California who claim the new policy directly violates the old policy which claims it will not share information from one service with another, Google owned or not.

Both plaintiffs bring a class-action suit against the technology representing all users holding accounts from August 2004 through the beginning of March of this year when the new policy went into effect. The lawsuits claim that Google is in violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, and several other federal and state laws regarding electronic privacy and communication storage.

If you remember before the new privacy policy went into effect March 1st, most of Google’s products had separate policies that addressed privacy concerns. The introduction of the new unified policy caused a lot of ruckus for users, lawmakers, and other interest parties.

These lawsuits seem to be an inevitability for Google who ignored a slew of complains, not the least of which was from the European Union, asking the technology giant to delay the launch of their new policies. There’s no way to tell what the court will rule on these cases, but it seems Google has pushed users over the edge with their increasing efforts to bring the public more relevant adds, as they put it.

Lets see what others are thinking about these new lawsuits:

@LiamLahey
Liam LaheyAnother day, another #privacy lawsuit – Google faces class action lawsuits against new privacy policy http://t.co/xMs06NpI #socmed 1 hour ago via HootSuite ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@marc_gallardo
marc gallardoClass action lawsuit filed against #Google over changes to #Privacy Policy Rules http://t.co/pUXSTLD8 Google’s lawyers are really busy !!! 9 hours ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@KaramelooNewsUS
KaramelooGoogle users sue company over ‘deceptive’ privacy changes: Three men have filed a lawsuit against Google Inc. ov… http://t.co/e0HWrgXV 12 hours ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@EvilGoogle
Evil GoogleEvil Google doesnt care. Period. @esqcounsel: Google ignores small claims privacy lawsuit – The Inquirer http://t.co/yR1sXBAt via @INQ 1 day ago via Gravity! ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@alexanderhanff
Alexander HanffJust filed for a default judgment against #Google in my lawsuit over their recent #privacy policy changes 1 day ago via Seesmic ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@toptwittools
James A.Facebook, Twitter, 16 Others Sued for Alleged Privacy Issues http://t.co/MKCGRRmz 2 days ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@alexanderhanff
Alexander HanffJust filed for a default judgment against #Google in my lawsuit over their recent #privacy policy changes 1 day ago via Seesmic ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

March 22, 2012
Google Refuses to Delay Imposed Privacy Policy

European Union Justice Commissioner Vivian Reding spoke this morning about the new Google privacy policy and its impact on European consumers in regard to existing privacy protections and guidelines:

“The authorities of the data controllers in Europe have asked their French counterparts to analyse the new policies and they have come to the conclusion that they are deeply concerned and that the new rules are not in accordance with the European law and that the transparency rules have not been applied,”

Those French counterparts are the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, a French privacy watchdog, and they are not convinced that the new Google policy is in the best interest of their citizens. According to Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, President of the CNIL, the new policy violates European Directive on Data Protection.

>>> Check out WebProNews’ special page covering Google Privacy … updated live. Subscribe to the Google Privacy RSS feed too!

In a letter to CEO Larry Page she explains her position:

“The new privacy policy provides only general information about all the services and types of personal data Google processes,”

“As a consequence, it is impossible for average users who read the new policy to distinguish which purposes, collected data, recipients or access rights are currently relevant to their use of a particular Google service.”

“Our preliminary investigation shows that it is extremely difficult to know exactly which data is combined between which services for which purposes, even for trained privacy professionals.”

Meanwhile, Vivian Reding has requested that Google delay the implementation of the new policy at Google. His request has not been honored, but Google’s centiments have been conveyed in a letter responding to Falque-Pierrotin and the CNIL written by Peter Fleischer, Google’s chief privacy counsel:

“We are confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles.”

“We have notified over 350 million authenticated Google users and provided highly visible notifications on our home page and in search results for our non-authenticated users,”

“To pause now would cause a great deal of confusion for users.”

We will have to wait to see what action the EU or CNIL will take regarding the supposed violations, if any. Meanwhile, the policy has been launched and is currently in full effect.

On the 26th of February, Chairman of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Jon Leibowitz commented to C-SPAN about Google’s new privacy policy in an interview with Bloomberg writer Brendan Greeley:

“…. consumers should have the right not to have their information collected…your computer is your property…people should have the right not to have their information collected particularly about sensitive issues.”

On the subject of turning off the tracking features on Google products and opting-out Leibowitz had this to say:

“I’m not too sure many people will opt-out. I happen to like getting, you know, ads that relate to the things I’m interested in – so we sense is not too many people will opt-out”

“….[Google] have been clear and that it’s a very binary and somewhat brutal choice that they’re giving consumers…I can’t say much more and I’ll just leave it at that, but we’re aware.”

March 1, 2012
European Union: New Google Privacy Policy Isn’t Lawful Or Fair

Upon the eve of Google’s new and controversial Privacy Policy going into effect, the tech company received a resounding rebuke from the European Union yesterday as France’s regulator said that the new policy seems to violates the EU’s rules regarding data protection. Given the possibility, CNIL, the French administrative authority that monitors how companies collect and store personal data of users, was not won over by Google.

With their initial findings not pleasing, CNIL penned a letter to Google CEO Larry Page on Monday that chided the company for failing to actually consult with authorities prior to announcing the new privacy policy. Further, CNIL suggests that Google exaggerated claims that “data protection authorities across the EU had been ‘extensively pre-briefed.’” As it were, it turns out Google only contacted a sample of the authorities and, even then, only did so mere hours before the announcement of the new privacy policy. Ultimately, CNIL declares that “Google’s new privacy policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection, especially regarding the information provided to data subjects.”

But just because the EU put Google on the ropes didn’t mean that they were going to start pulling punches. The letter continues to scold Google the way a sagacious parent might discipline a crass, ill-tempered child.

The fact that Google informs users about what it will not do with the data (such as sharing personal data with advertisers) is not sufficient to provide comprehensive information either.

Rather than promoting transparency, the terms of the new policy and the fact that Google claims publicly that it will combine data across services raises fears about Google’s actual practices. Our preliminary investigation shows that it is extremely difficult to know exactly which data is combined between which services for which purposes even for trained privacy professionals.

The CNIL and the EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services: they have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing, and about its compliance with European Data Protection legislation.

CNIL concluded by saying that they will “fully address” this issue within the next few weeks, but by then who knows what further trouble will have arisen in the muck of Google’s new policy. In the meantime, CNIL has asked Google for a “pause” in implementing the new privacy policy.

To that last note, Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said, “We have notified over 350 million authenticated Google users and provided highly visible notifications on our home page and in search results for our non-authenticated users. To pause now would cause a great deal of confusion for users.”

No, enacting a new and poorly understood privacy policy will cause confusion for users, Mr. Fleischer. It’s not like the launch of this new privacy policy is some runaway locomotive on a downhill plummet that can’t possibly be halted without causing the collateral deaths of every passenger onboard. It’s a user policy. You most definitely can delay its application. But instead, Google has opted to amorally go with the “Gimme it, it’s mine!” approach to user privacy, information in general, and its disdain for international laws.

February 29, 2012
Google Executive Chairman Warns Against Regulation

On Tuesday, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt warned regulators that technology should be allowed to develop its own solutions rather than forcing invasive privacy laws that could stifle innovation and stall foreward progress:

“There’re so many new technologies that help protect privacy … that you hope the privacy regulator will never restrict that,”

“[The] unintended cost of regulation is often the loss of innovation.”

“If you have to regulate, try to regulate the outcome not the technology. If there’s an outcome that you don’t like, don’t specify in law a technical solution because technology moves forward,”

Remember, on Thursday new Google privacy policy goes into effect. Essentially the new blanket policy will allow Google to take user information from all Google products and employ that information to offer an enhanced experience. What does that mean? It means user preferences will be taken from YouTube, Gmail, Google+, and others to provide targeted advertising, suggest relevant products, and offer related services.

I don’t know that it carries the ominous threat that we have been lead to believe. The danger, I guess, is that they are storing our data and it could be misused if put in the wrong hands. But as Google themselves will tell you, there are ways to opt out.

Google search, privacy director Alma Whitten wrote in an editorial for the Sacramento Bee:

“We just want to use the information you already trust us with to make your experience better,”

“If you don’t think information sharing will improve your experience, you don’t need to sign in to use services like Search, Maps and YouTube.”

“If you are signed in, you can use our many privacy tools to do things like edit or turn off your search history, control the way Google tailors ads to your interests and browse the Web ‘incognito’ using Chrome.”

Obviously the discussion of how to safely regulate private information needs to carry on, but I don’t believe Google is doing anything evil with their new policy on privacy. There’s options for those who don’t wish to participate, if fact, you can opt not to use Google products at all.

February 29, 2012
Don’t Let Google’s Privacy Policy Out You: Clear Your Web History Before March 1st

Gizmodo‘s got a helpful guide out today that steers Google users through the steps to remove your search history. You might be wondering why cleaning out your Web History is worth considering/doing right now but, lest you forget, Google’s new and dubious Privacy Policy jumps into action next Thursday, March 1, at which point all content in your Web History will be linked with your personal Google Accounts (Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, etc.).

In the interest of safeguarding your integrity (in your Google life and your real life), Gizmodo details how to not only clear out your browsing history but also turn off the Web History feature so Google won’t be keeping a record of where you go on the internet:
Step 1: Assuming you are already signed into your Google account (if not, do that first), direct your browser to Google Web History. You may be prompted to enter your password before proceeding. If so, go ahead and do that.
Step 2: Once you’re in Web History, you’ll see all of the search content Google’s amassed from you. Atop the page, you’ll also see text that either says, “Web History is on,” or “Web History is off.” If you fall into the latter group, your work here is done. Good job – Google’s got nothing on you. If your Web History is on, sally forth onto the next step.

Step 3: If your Web History is on, click on the button that says, “Remove all Web History.” Of course, Google will second guess you and present you with the message, “Are you sure you want to clear your entire web history? Your web history will also be paused,” after you click the button. Indeed, Click ‘OK.’

Step 3: You may be prompted to re-enter your password; if so, enter it and proceed accordingly. If not, all the better for you. At any rate, you should be back at your Web History page and you should see a message that reads, “Your search history is currently empty.” If you see that, then – success!

While on this page, note the message, “Web History is paused.” You will see an option to Resume, but stay away from that.

After that, exhale with relief that your browsing history is deleted and Google won’t be cross-sharing any future browsing information with your Google accounts.

I mentioned above that if upon your initial visit to the Web History page you were greeted with the message, “Web History is Paused,” you have no search history to delete so you should be okay.

One last but very important note: Gizmodo says that this still doesn’t prevent Google from gathering and using your information for internal purposes, nor does it prevent Google from handing it over to law enforcement should it be requested. Nonetheless, assuming you’re not a fugitive from justice, these steps will at least keep Google from inadvertently exposing your search history through your Google accounts. The last thing you want is for your innocent image search for “ultimate nudity” to end up populating your Google Accounts for all to see.

February 24, 2012

In January, Google announced that it was overhauling its more than 60 privacy policies and replacing them with one. As Alma Whitten, Google’s Director of Privacy in Product and Engineering, wrote in the announcement, the idea is to create a “beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google.”

The search giant said the main change for users would be that it could combine information from one service with its other services, thus providing a more fluid user experience. For example, if you conduct several searches on Google on a particular item, Google could assume that you want a video on that item if you then visit YouTube.

What do you think of Google’s new privacy policy? Does it affect you at all? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Danny Sullivan, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land According to Danny Sullivan, the Executive Editor of Search Engine Land, the new policy will provide users with more personalized results. He told us that it really wasn’t surprising that Google made the change since most other tech and Internet companies have one privacy policy for all their products and services.

“Google, which kind of has come from privacy policies on a per product basis, is kind of playing catch up, so that they have the ability to be more flexible both in what they may do with the information and how they may use the information to improve products and services,” he said.

This flexibility is what has some people worried, however. Under the new policy, Google could potentially take the information it gathers when users search to target them with ads. Although Google says it will not do this, the new policy gives it the right if it so chooses.

“Potentially, it gives Google a lot of new rights,” said Sullivan.

Privacy groups have voiced numerous concerns over what the new policy could mean. Specifically, the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC) has even sued the FTC, saying that Google’s new policy violates the settlement the company and the agency reached last year over Google Buzz. The group is asking the FTC to take action that will prevent Google from combining user data “without user content” before the company puts its new policy into effect next month.

Due to the timing of the matter, a federal district judge ordered the FTC to have its response to EPIC ready today. In return, EPIC is supposed to have its counter response ready by February 21.

EPIC also filed another complaint this week over the privacy assessments the FTC required Google to take. Google said it was complying with the audits but has, up to this point, kept them closed.

“I thought that if you’re going to be audited on privacy, then perhaps you ought to release the privacy audits so that… the public could see it,” said Sullivan.

EPIC claims that the FTC Consent Order required Google to answer detailed questions about privacy and user information but that the search giant did not answer them.

Interestingly, Forbes featured a report this week stating that the court should dismiss the lawsuit between EPIC and the FTC. According to the report, the privacy group is overstepping its third party right under administrative law.

Glenn G. Lammi wrote:

Washington Legal Foundation would be the last one to argue that federal agency actions should be immune from judicial review as a general principle. But once a settlement agreement has been reached between an agency and a private entity, the agency should not be compelled to embrace an outside party’s view that the agreement has been breached. EPIC is welcome to communicate its general views to FTC (which they do so quite often) on the Google Buzz settlement, just as Google might avail FTC of its thoughts on whether a competitor like Facebook or Twitter violated its respective privacy agreement with the Commission. But empowering activists or competitors to imprint their views of consent agreement breach on the Commission would be a dangerous and easily abused tool. If Congress wanted such third parties to inject themselves into FTC’s process on such agreements more formally and authoritatively, it would have said so.

Sullivan told us that, although he has yet to look closely at EPIC’s case, he doubted the FTC would find Google in any violation.

Unfortunately for Google though, that’s not where its problems stop. The European Union has also asked it to delay the roll out of the new privacy policy. In a letter to Google’s CEO Larry Page, Jacob Kohnstamm, a European privacy regulator, wrote:

We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated procedure. We have therefore asked the French data protection authority, the CNIL, to take the lead. The CNIL has kindly accepted this task and will be your point of contact for the data protection authorities in the EU.

In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis.

In a post on its European Public Policy Blog, Google responded to the letter saying it had met with several officials prior to its announcement and briefed them of the changes. It said that no one had any objections at that time and indicated that it would proceed with its plans to implement its new policy in March.

Most recently, nonprofit Consumer Watchdog wrote a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee requesting that Larry Page explain Google’s “disingenuous statements about its supposed commitment to users’ privacy.”

In this letter, Privacy Project Director John Simpson wrote:

“If Google were truly committed to “user control,” it would ask users to “opt in” to these substantive changes in its data handling, rather than imposing them across the board… Google’s practices affect millions of Americans. Google is so dominant on the Internet that for many people Google is the Internet.

You must not allow Google to escape legitimate privacy concerns by sending underlings whose high-sounding pledges prove to be empty or whose answers prove insufficient in closed-door meetings. It is the chief executive who is ultimately responsible for the company’s behavior.”

What’s more, a Washington Post poll found that 65 percent of users said they would cancel their Google accounts over the privacy changes.

Sullivan, however, told us that he believes this poll is “99 percent inaccurate.” As he explained, users reacted in this same way when Facebook made changes in 2010. In the end, Facebook grew instead.

“If they’re that concerned about it, then their alternative is to go to another company that is doing exactly the same thing,” he said. “It really doesn’t come down to what these privacy policies say, it comes down to the kind of controls that you’re provided and given, and ultimately, I think, your trust in the company overall.”

Ironically, as Matt McGee pointed out, Google quietly launched a new program that allows users to get paid if they use the Chrome browser and share their data with the search engine. It’s called Screenwise and pays users in Amazon gift cards. Although many other companies conduct similar practices in order to learn how they can improve their services, Sullivan told us that the timing of this program was very bad for Google.

In spite of the backlash, it appears that Google will roll out its new privacy policy March 1. The company currently has an ad campaign to help to alleviate concerns, but Sullivan believes that Google will need to begin doing extensive PR outreach in D.C. as well.

Does Google’s privacy policy go too far, or is it what you would expect from a company of its size? Let us know what you think in the comments.