Being more than a bit sensitive to privacy issues and the like, I was a bit worried with some BREATHLESS AND HORRIFIED articles started popping up about how GOOGLE WAS DESTROYING OUR PRIVACY AND NOT GIVING US ANY CHANCE TO AVOID IT (with great choruses of DOOOOOOOM! in the background).
Reading a bit further over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that it's mostly terror and/or fear-mongering due to …
– Folks who are overly afraid of their privacy (not in a "I'm being stalked by my ex-husband" but in a "The Internet is out to kill me!" kind of way).
– Folks who don't like Google.
– Folks who stand to profit from folks not liking Google.
Bottom line:
– Google is going to be sharing data between its apps that you may be using, to allow synergies and more intelligent services.
– Google has had all this data all along (and, in fact, I thought they used it already).
– Google is still not giving any data away to 3rd Parties.
The only worrisome bit here is the synergy with ads — not because I'm concerned about targeted ads, but for reasons similar to that kid who got kicked out of his home because the ads served up by Facebook spilled the beans to his doltish parents that he was gay. But the ad synergy is already there in Gmail, and can be very easily opted out of / unpersonalized. And, honestly, most folks I know run AdBlocker so they don't see the ads anyway.
In short, there's nothing here that's worrying me, nor that should worry the vast majority of folks out there. Though I'm willing to hear arguments to the contrary. #ddtb
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How Will Google's New Privacy Policy Affect You?
If you were hanging around the internet yesterday afternoon, you probably noticed some hubbub around Google's new, unified Terms of Service Agreement.