Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Googles policy "no-change" change?

[Sam Tuke]

On Tuesday 31 January 2012 09:23:01 Anna Morris wrote:
> So the privacy policy has changed. Anyone know
> 
> a) if this is to the point of being MISleading
> b) what the changes are and what they mean - I don't know much about what
> they were before, but am assuming, as they are being coy, its something
> bad.

My understanding is that the main change to the actual policy is that Google 
can now pool all data about you from their (70?) services, and use it for more 
targeted and more profitable advertising, and customise your search results 
more specifically to your data, interests, browsing habits, contacts, region, 
etc. etc. etc..

It also means that the policy is simper (one document, not 70).

More info here: http://mashable.com/2012/01/24/google-changes-again-launches-
one-privacy-policy-to-rule-them-all/

I find it pretty scary, because if you analogise it to government record 
keeping, it means that instead of Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police, 
Social Services, the NHS, the DVLA etc.  having separate records on you, now 
there is just one huge file with all your details in one place. So if you do 
something one dept. doesn't like, all the other departments will know about it 
too.

Perhaps if you watch youtube videos that you're not supposed to because of 
geographic licensing restrictions, then in future this will be stated on your 
Google+ account, or your GMail account will automatically be searched to find 
out how you did it. Who knows. A step in the wrong direction for privacy, it 
seems to me.

Out of interest I stopped using Google search on most of my machines a few 
months ago and switched to DuckDuckGo. You can set Firefox to completely 
replace Google with another, more privacy conscious, search engine - it's 
fairly easy. Hopefully one day soon we'll all be using a Free Software search 
engine like YaCy, with better results, better privacy, and more freedom :)

Thanks,

Sam.
-- 
Sam Tuke
British Team Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
IM : address@hidden
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