Google's new privacy policy will take effect on March 1. It consolidates Google's 70 or so privacy policies across its products - from Gmail to YouTube to Blogger - down to one, and will pull data from users logged in to Google.
But the change has a lot of people very concerned about the implications. One group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has already sued to stop Google from implementing the change, arguing that the company is in violation of a recent Federal Trade Commission settlement. The nation's attorneys general, the European Commission, and another consumer group have also voiced their opposition.
What Google's New Policy Means for You
A preview of the new Google policy, which Google has made available online, explains some of the information Google collects and will soon conflate. It includes "information you give us" (personal information that you have to provide in order to sign up for certain free services), information about how and when you use the services, which devices you use, your location, and more. A big part of the body of data is your Google.com search history.Google's stated purpose in bringing together the information it collects about you is to improve its services, but it also enables the company to deliver more personalized ads and personalized search results… which not everyone wants. Luckily, there is at least one way to avoid that.
How to Side-Step the Effects of Google's Privacy Change
One way to get out of some of the effects of Google's privacy change is to delete your Web search history. It's an option that Google voluntarily provides.Eva Galperin, an international activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote a step-by-step guide on "How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google's New Privacy Policy Takes Effect." Her instructions are simple enough for anyone to follow. But understanding exactly what is happening when you delete your Google search history takes a little more explanation.
I spoke with Galperin by phone to better understand what it really means.
When you delete your search history from Google, it does not mean that the company stops collecting the data that you create. It still takes the information and stores it away, but it promises not to use it. If presented with a subpoena or warrant, Google would have to give that information to the appropriate parties, but there doesn't seem to be any other reason the company hangs onto it. After 18 months, the data becomes "anonymized."
I asked Galperin to define "anonymized," and she said "It depends. They'll take your name off and strip some bits off the IP address." But, she added, "The extent to which [Google has] anonymized the data is unclear." She also mentioned that some research suggests that it's possible to de-anonymize data fairly easily "if you have a large enough corpus." No one would dispute that Google certainly has a very large data set.
And what happens if you don't delete it? "It's unclear how long Google keeps [your information] if you don't delete your Web history," said Galperin. Leaving it alone also means that Google can give you those more personalized results it keeps promising, which Galperin notes isn't necessarily "better" or what you want.
Personalized Results: Creepy?
Providing a more personalized experience on all of Google's products is not something everyone wants, though some will certainly see the value. Some people, Galperin included, find it creepy."There are a lot of people who have started using Google's products separately," she noted. You might have one side of your personality that uses YouTube, while a very different personality uses Blogger, or Google Scholar, or any of the other services. Some users prefer to keep these slices of their lives separate.
"The questions consumers should be asking are, 'Who has your data and how much do they have and with whom are they sharing it?'" Galperin said. That's what's at stake, typically, when you use an ostensibly "free" service such as Google or Facebook.
Galperin plans to write at least one more step-by-step guide on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website for helping users do what they can to bypass the effects of Google's new privacy changes, such as deleting their history on YouTube.
For more, see Google's Privacy Policy: A Wakeup Call, But That's It.