Thursday saw the change in the way that Google would ‘use’ their users’ data to compile more than 60 Google services into one central file to be used for trending data to give more accurate search results from now on, at the expense of invading their privacy. Most Google users have ignored the new privacy policies and although Google are trying to be upfront with the new policies by offering warnings of when the changes would take place, most people haven’t bothered to be interested.
With a lot of legal-wrangling from Attorney Generals and privacy campaigners stating that their use of the data is troubling, only around 12% of people have actually read the new policy changes – although that data was only found from accessing user’s activity! Slightly less than half of the people questioned did not know that the changes were going to be so big, and that the privacy policies were too difficult to understand exactly what was changing.
There are fears that the search engine giants are putting their advertisers before their customers and despite efforts from the Europe as some of the policies need to comply with various different laws across the continent, the company is going ahead with the changes anyway. Arguments from Google state that they are merely making the search experience more accurate for their users, for example if a user watches a video on YouTube then their web history will be accounted for when they search for something relevant from then on.
Using a variety of Google Apps, including mobile apps and smartphone usage, the company can deliver results based on the movements and interests of their target market for their advertisers so that the results are much more focused than any other form of advertising in the world. Google also states that users can increase their privacy before the new policy begins.
