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HOST: It’s been called illegal, it’s been called invasive, but chances are you haven’t read Google’s new privacy policy. After five weeks of publicity, the policy was enacted just yesterday. Think tanks, attorneys general, and even European officials have voiced concern over it. Google says the changes will improve searches. Jason Slotkin checked this out with some users.
SOUNDS: Cafe noises
NARRATION: Alex Ramirez sits near the door at the Hungarian Pastry Shop In Morningside Heights. Macbook open in front of him, he Googles the name of a Harvard faculty member and post-doc program he’s been researching.
SOUNDS: Typing
RAMIREZ: Typing Larien Enghart. His webpage is the first to come up and his lab page is the second to come up.
NARRATION: Then, he drops the faculty member’s name and searches again
RAMIREZ: His name doesn’t come up. I just get admissions for Harvard and Harvard’s website. Yeah, not focused enough.
NARRATION: Bottom line for Ramirez: Google searching hasn’t changed. In fact, he hasn’t even read the new policy.
RAMIREZ: I’ve been lazy and its something I want to read and should be concerned about.
NARRATION: There’s plenty of concern among Internet privacy advocates. The new policy will allow Google to consolidate account information for every Google, Youtube, Gmail, Android or user of any of the company’s services, allowing the company to share data across both its Internet and phone platforms.
David Jacobs, a fellow at the Electronic Privacy information Center says Google is not collecting new information, but they change will allow it to compile the largest caches of personal information of held by any private company in the world.
JACOBS: Google collecting all this information provides a lot more info and more detailed profile than if another company that only does email and one other service tried to combine it together.
NARRATION: Jacob’s group unsuccessfully filed suit against the Federal Trade Commission to block the change. Last week, 36 state Attorneys General wrote a letter to Google calling the policy “troubling” for a number of reasons such as the inability for consumers to opt out of this blanket privacy policy and a potential increased risk of identity theft for Google product users. On top of that, just yesterday, European Commissioner of Justice Viviane Reading called the policy illegal because of how it forces users to share their personal data across multiple products. Europe has much stricter internet laws than the U.S. But Google has already been collecting and using customer data for advertising purposes. Google promises it does not share data with outside companies without customer consent and that has not changed.
Larry Magid, a freelance tech journalist for CBS and Forbes blogger, says Google is not the only company that collects our information. Credit card companies and phone carriers have been collecting our information for decades.
MAGID: It’s one of many examples of how we given up our anonymity in exchange for various technological wonders.
NARRATION: Magid whose non-profit Connect Safely has received grant funding from Google, dedicated several recent blog posts to alerting users how they can hide information from Google which includes deleting your Google history, not logging into Google, and clearing data from your web browser.
Jason Slotkin. Columbia Radio News.
