secrets private
Description: How does a company that collects so much information from its users keep all that data private?
Source: cnn .com
Date: Jan 25, 2012
As part of that tune-up, Google on Tuesday made the major announcement that it has streamlined its privacy policy. Instead of 70 policies across each of its products — search, maps, Gmail, etc. — Google will consolidate most of them into a single, shorter, privacy agreement. Whitten wrote in a blog post Tuesday that the move is designed to add clarity to Google’s privacy stance.
Google has begun notifying its users of the changes. The company also began a massive publicity campaign this month, putting advertisements about privacy in major cities throughout the country .Read Rest of Story
Questions for discussion:
- How secure is your privacy with Google?
- Why is Google changing how they handle our privacy? Is this for the customers’ benefit?
Sarah
As a person who uses the internet almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I didn’t have a gmail account until recently. I signed up for it only because I recently purchased an Android that works best and syncs with my Google Account. I’m pleased with the services Google has to offer and I’m not too concerned about the security and privacy settings. I believe that if there is something on the internet (in general), you can assume it can be seen by others. I rarely put anything on Google that I don’t want others to see. I don’t mind that Google knows what I like to search and what websites I go to most often. That information isn’t so private to me. In fact, I sometimes use the suggestions Google gives me based on my surfing habits and they are sometimes useful.
As for who the privacy policy benefits, it can go both ways. The customer is probably more satisfied with reading one policy that relates to all the services Google has to offer, rather than a policy for each service. This also benefits Google. By creating a privacy policy that adheres to each service, they have increased the trustworthiness of themselves. Google has added some aspects to the policy that secures customer information more than ever.
Jillian Howard
Google has created a privacy director as a new position, to ensure that there will be no intrusions to user’s privacy. New privacy tools have been release and built in fail-safes have been implemented to provide a secure system. Google has streamlined its privacy policy; I don’t understand how this is beneficial to the company. I would think that a privacy policy to each of its products would be considered more focussed and prevent further privacy issues. Google is also going to “submit an independent privacy review to the government for the next 20 years”. This agreement was made after the company unintentionally revealed users’ personal information to the public. A new solution to privacy intrusion was established; individuals were hired and divided into subgroups to analyze privacy segments in which they had expert power. I believe that Google is taking adequate initiatives to ensure users’ privacy; however, there appears to be a lack of effort in this area. In my opinion, Google is taking minimal precaution’s to satisfy its users that they are doing something about the privacy issue, but they have not exhausted their resources in the process. I still think that there could still be links in the system that could deter some users’ from Google; however several users’ have become dependent on the site; as a result, this will not significantly affect Google.
nelizer tumampos
I always use google as part of my daily routine; especially that majority of my family is living across the globe. When I signed up with my google account, the first question came out to me is how secured all the information I gave to them. One of the most important factor affects my decision in patronizing the services of google is the benefits of the services they offer to the public, most of the services they have its very useful to me to the extend that even in some point I have a huge doubt in terms of there capacity in protecting and preserving my personal identity.
Google Privacy centre helps me to fully understand how the company protects my information online. This site includes all of Google’s privacy policies, as well as privacy best practices for each of its products and services. Although the “legalese” of privacy policies can be difficult to understand, Google’s Privacy Channel offers a library of short YouTube videos with practical tips on protecting your data when using Google products and services.
I trust Google to respect my privacy. And as a company I believe they will do there best to protect our individual identity because the success of there company is based on how they will protect the right of there members. The success of google is will always depends on how credible they are in terms of protecting our right.
Garang
for me, privacy isn’t my big concern with Google account or services because I do not supply my solid Identity for subscription on the internet. Regardless of how much Google pledge to protect my privacy even through new multifaceted, fail safe and other tools, I don’t find myself convince enough to plug my crucial identification into the internet. Doing so could possibly jeopardize my identity. With increasingly high skilled hackers, I believed that on a scale of 1 to 10, (with 10 being highly secure) privacy with Google could possibly fall somewhere around 6, even considering the new innovation and high privacy concern.
Lately, I believe that Google is changing how they handle customer’s privacy because of the pressure from the public, government, and the customers. With increasing identity theft on the rise, Google find it appropriate to take a step further in protecting their customers from any sort of identity theft and privacy invasion. In addition, they are also doing this to protect themselves from being sued by victims of identity theft.
Rosemary Aladedunye
Keeping the secret, secret. The message of keeping the customer’s information should be a vital aim of Google Inc. Many people want their names, ages, numbers etc to remain with their subscriber without giving it to third party. Even many companies can go extra length to get the information about target market or audience to advertise, to call, send information and some may even give discount to new customer if they can get the name easily and selling the product. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Document Act (PIPEDA) issues should not be taken with levity. The team involves with privacy issues should make sure, that the users information is secure. if they betray the users, and the information leaks out, a fine should be paid. Theft is another concern, people steal someone else’s information and pretend to be the person, when they are not (Identity Theft). Users are scared, identity is easy to loose, personal image could be destroyed all these are issues that users face daily. Google should assure the users that their personal information is secure, or else they would be held responsible if they violate their law of protecting users information. Privacy invasion is another critical issue, and only information willingly and deliberately volunteered by the users should be collected. In other word, Google should be transparent about the information collected and the usage.
Jingyi Wang
How Google keeps your secrets private
Google has been an amazing reach tool recently in our life. It has many functions to share the data whether from personal or public. For example, Google map, nowadays, not only can give us direction of the place that we want to go, but also can help us to find something like our cell phone. Chatting on Gmail as well can tell us friends’ location. After all these Google functions have been widely used, many people begin to concern that how Google keeps our information private. However, Google has created a privacy director as a new position, to ensure that there will be no intrusions to user’s privacy, also they have privacy centre to explain that how do they do to keep users’ information private. On the other hand, there would be some risk for every single piece of data or information we need to put on line, no mater they go through with hotmail, yahoo mail, or gmail. In addition, Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP for local, said “users can easily find out and control Google knows about them.” It is true because we can always search our own information to see if they’ve been steal away. To sum up, Google’s service that they offer is the beneficial to the public
Mike
I believe that the consumer has a choice. They can use a service and if they agree to use a service then they give up rights to their information. Google is providing the consumer with a free service that provides great value for the consumer. To do this they must receive something in return, if they are able to use my data to make a profit while giving the consumer something for free I see nothing wrong. When consumers feel they do not want their information collected they can choose to opt out of the service. Google business model is not based of charging the consumer, instead they provide other companies information while giving their user base access to free services. To me this is an amazing business model and although they most be aware of protecting our data so it is not leaked into the wrong hands I see nothing wrong with data collection. Once Google has the data though there becomes the issue of what companies are allowed to see and use their data. The data is Google’s but I have an issue with them opening all the data to the public. A degree of anonymity would be preferable when they distribute their data so if it does get into the wrong hands they do not have information on specific people.