Google privacy announcement: “will benefit us…I mean users”*

[*not an actual Google quote]

On Tuesday Google announced via its blog that from 1^st March, more than 60 of its privacy policies will be helpfully consolidated into one, easy to read document. What a fantastic idea! We all know how sensitive the issue of internet privacy has become and anything that provides transparency in a simple way has to be of great benefit to internet users.

But before we shake Google by the hand for doing the honourable thing and distinguishing themselves from privacy flouters like Facebook, let’s investigate what this privacy update actually means…are Google demonstrating transparency or are they pursuing a commercial agenda under the cover of advocating privacy?

It’s not just a consolidation of privacy policies that Google are rolling out in March, it is a consolidation of their products and the individual user data collected when using them. By logging into Google, from 1^st March you will be agreeing to allow Google to share data across its products from Gmail, Google+ and Calendar, to Maps, YouTube and most significantly Search.

As Google put it: “when you sign into Google you will be treated as a single user across all our products, reflecting our efforts to create one beautifully simple experience”

This means that your Google searches will not only start to include Google+ results (Search Plus My World) but will be personalised to reflect your use of all of Google’s products.

Google have communicated this evolution by identifying some key user experience benefits:

1)      Improve search relevance eg what do you mean when you search for Boots? Are you looking for a chemist or footwear? Over time Google will understand what you mean and return the relevant results.

2)      Provide more relevant ads based on your interests (read as: allow marketers to target a relevant audience – something Facebook have already achieved)

3)      Customised spelling suggestions eg your mate whose name is Marc spelt with a ‘c’

4)      Real-time diary alerts based on location eg you had better leave now to make kick-off because the M25 is grid-locked and take an umbrella because it’s raining at Wembley and they are playing the match with the roof open.

Whether the world is ready to be provided with such insight on their own lives remains to be seen. People generally fall into the ‘wowed’ or ‘scared’ category and it could take the next generation to realise the full benefits of the former camp.

The fact that Google are in a position to provide this kind of data to users is a testament to their innovation and acquisition of user-centric products. They have been capturing user data for over a decade and this privacy announcement does not change this. However, the step to integrate user data and build it into their user experience will provide a reality check for many blissfully unaware internet users that everything they are doing online is being tracked, logged and leveraged by those that hold this data. Targeted ads have been demonstrating this for some time but once your best friend’s name appears as a suggested search, the awakening will surely be complete…and people better get used to it.

Google’s friendly low-fi, hand-drawn videos that accompany most of their significant announcements proudly states that -

“There’s so much more that Google can do to help you by sharing more of your information with … well, you”. You could add “and us” onto this, for the depth of its users’ data is increasingly important to Google to stay ahead in online advertising. This is really the crux of it. What this privacy update does for Google is to get users to authorise the use of considerable amounts of their data, collected from Google’s multiple product offering, simply by signing into their unified Google account.

The only way you can opt-out of the new all-encompassing privacy policy is to not log into any Google products. Let’s face it we are unlikely to see an exodus of Google users as a result of this update and surely Google learned some valuable lessons from their last attempt to link information across its services (the resulting complaints helped kill off Buzz)

Thank you Google for reminding me to take my umbrella to Wembley but sadly I lost it last week and the Gmail I sent to my fellow Liverpool supporter to remember his, fell on deaf ears….oh hang on a sec, what’s this ad on YouTube? 25% off LFC branded umbrellas at the Wembley Park store?

Sweeeeet. I love you Google…but you’re getting a bit scary.

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