Google: Unified Privacy Policy and TOS
Google updates and unifies its different privacy policies and TOS: Sure it’s evil? http://eicker.at/GooglePrivacyPolicy
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus + Google Apps
Google Plus is now available with Google Apps, adds sharing history with Google+ Ripples; http://eicker.at/GoogleAppsPlus
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google Apps fans, today we’re ready to add you to our circles. Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in the real world, and now Google+ is available to people who use Google Apps at college, at work or at home. – Starting now you can manually turn on Google+ for your organization. Once Google+ is turned on, your users will just need to sign up at google.com/+ to get started. For customers who use Google Apps for Business or the free version of Google Apps and who have chosen to automatically enable new services, Google+ will automatically become available to all of your users over the next several days. … Hangouts with extras, which combines multi-person video chat with screen sharing and collaboration in Google Docs, lets you work together on projects even when your team can’t be in the same room. … Many students and teachers have sent us their ideas about how they can use Google+ to teach, learn, work, and play. These are a few Google Apps for Education universities from around the world that are bringing Google+ to their campuses today… For those of you who’ve already started using Google+ with a personal Google Account and would prefer to use your Google Apps account, we’re building a migration tool to help you move over. … It took more technical work than we expected to bring Google+ to Google Apps, and we thank you for your patience.”
RWW: “The day has finally come. Google Plus is now available for Google Apps customers. Apps administrators can now manually turn on Google Plus for their organizations. The welcome change will roll out in the ‘next several days.’ … Google Apps users have been crying out for Plus access since the beginning. These are the customers who actually pay Google to use its Web services for their organizations, and yet the Apps versions of Google’s tools routinely lag behind the free versions. … But ever since the public launch, Plus has had this killer feature with no clear user base: Google Docs in Hangouts. It’s an ideal way to collaborate on a project. But how often do casual friends collaborate on projects? Google Plus has had an obvious institutional use case for over a month. Now, at last, Google Apps users in college or the office can use these tools to get things done.”
VB: “While enabling Google+ for Google Apps customers is certainly a big move for the company, eventually Google plans to bring Google+ functionality to all of its various services (Gmail, search, shopping, etc.).”
TNW: “Using Google+ for Google Apps? Your admin has access to all of your data – If you’re a user of Google+ with a corporate or education Google Apps account, your administrator can access and modify your Google+ account and its postings. This information is pointed out in a Google help center topic related to the new feature: ‘Because you’re signing up for Google+ with your corporate email address, your Google Apps administrator retains the right to access your Google+ data and modify or delete it at any time.’ … The fact that an administrator has access to your accounts under Google Apps is nothing new, but this is the first time that Google has had a social network among its Apps offerings, so the privacy implications are a bit more severe.”
Google: “Whether it’s breaking news or beautiful photos, you just don’t want to miss anything. With this in mind, we’re launching ‘What’s Hot’ on Google+, a new place to visit for interesting and unexpected content… Google+ Ripples: watch how posts get shared – There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing on Google+, then watching the activity unfold. Comments pour in, notifications light up, friends share with friends [who share with their friends], and in no time at all there’s an entire community around your post. … Google+ Creative Kit: have more fun with your photos – Now you can add that vintage feel to your vacation photos. Or sharpen those snapshots from the family barbeque. Or add some text for added personality. With the Creative Kit, all you need is an idea…”
TC: “Google+ Resurrects Playback Feature From Wave, Renames It ‘Ripples’ – Last August, Google asked us all to say good-bye to Google Wave. Some said Wave was ahead of its time, some said that the platform had enough features to sink the Titanic. … And one of these features launched today on Google+ seems a throwback to one now-defunct feature of Google Wave, called ‘Playback’. … Yes, today, Google launched its new Google+ Ripples, which will let users ‘re-live’ the conversations, comments, and sharing that’s taken place over the history of their use of Google+. … In other words, Ripples is a ‘visualization tool for public shares and comments‘, which users can access by simply selecting the ‘View Ripples’ option in the drop down window to the right of the public post.”
TNW: “Google not only wants to show you what’s hot, but wants to show you how it got hot by showing you how a post was shared. The name also brings back memories of a previous Google product, ‘Wave’. … This is a pretty drastic upgrade for Google+, as until now, the only way to find posts that interested you was through its search function, or when your friends re-shared a post.”
VB: “Perhaps more interesting for the visually oriented is Google+ Ripples, a new way to watch how posts travel across the company’s set of social features and through various user’s circles. You can view the ‘ripples’ for any public post; this feature will show you all of that post’s activity. You can zoom in on specific events, check out top contributors and more.”
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Hangouts
Google Plus challenges Facebook, Google Plus Hangouts aims for Skype, videoconferencing in general; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusHangouts
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Just think: when you walk into the pub or step onto your front porch, you’re in fact signaling to everyone around, ‘Hey, I’ve got some time, so feel free to stop by.’ Further, it’s this unspoken understanding that puts people at ease, and encourages conversation. But today’s online communication tools (like instant messaging and video-calling) don’t understand this subtlety: They’re annoying, for starters. You can ping everyone that’s ‘available,’ but you’re bound to interrupt someone’s plans. They’re also really awkward. When someone doesn’t respond, you don’t know if they’re just not there, or just not interested. With Google+ we wanted to make on-screen gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous, so we created Hangouts. By combining the casual meetup with live multi-person video, Hangouts lets you stop by when you’re free, and spend time with your Circles. Face-to-face-to-face.”
Google+: “Bumping into friends while you’re out and about is one of the best parts of going out and about. With Hangouts, the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time. Let your mates know that you’re hanging out and see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat. Until we perfect teleportation, it’s the next best thing.”
GigaOM: “I don’t think Facebook has anything to worry about. However, there is a whole slew of other companies that should be on notice. Just as Apple put several app developers on notice with the announcement of its new iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion, Google+ should give folks at companies such as Blekko, Skype and a gaggle of group messaging companies a pause. I personally think Skype Video can easily be brought to its knees by Google Plus’ Hangout. And even if Google+ fails, Google could easily make Hangout part of the Google office offering.”
iCTI: “Google Plus’ cool factor may or may not wow the typical user, but what about rolling it into the enterprise along with other Google services, specifically applied in unified communications? Contact management, enhanced? Check (Google Plus’ Circles feature). Email management? Check (Gmail). Document management? Check (Google Docs). Voice (over IP) communications? Check (Google Voice). Instant messenging? Check (Gtalk). Videoconferencing, even with a group? Check (Google Plus’ Hangouts feature). Mobile chat? Check (Google Plus’ Huddle feature).”
Gerrit Eicker
Wyoming@Google
Wyoming has officially gone Google: completed its transition to Google Apps for Government; http://eicker.at/WyomingGoogle
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Office
Facebook Messages adds Microsoft Office Web Apps: Still not designed as an enterprise product? http://eicker.at/FacebookOffice
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Gerrit Eicker
Microsoft: “Starting today, from Facebook you can view Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents via Office Web Apps with just one click. – It goes without saying that social networks are definitely becoming an indispensable part of people’s lives. People don’t just use social networks to connect with their personal and professional contacts, but also to discover new things and great ideas shared by people across their life. … Facebook’s new messaging platform integrates the Office Web Apps to enable Facebook users to view Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents with just one click.”
RWW: “Facebook’s newly announced messaging platform will deeply integrate Microsoft’s Office Web Apps so that Facebook users can view Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments without having to leave the site. Rumors about this integration started to make the rounds on the Internet earlier last week. Oddly, though, Facebook didn’t mention this integration during today’s press conference and makes no mention of it in the official announcement on its corporate blog. … While Microsoft points out that this integration can also be used for ‘serious’ business, Business users aren’t likely to share their documents through the Facebook platform, after all. – For Microsoft, this is a major win, as its flagship Web productivity apps will now play a central role on the Web’s most popular social network.”
VB: “The step into Facebook is less of a grab at the collaboration space and more like another jab at Google. … If Microsoft were looking to challenge Google in the business collaboration space they would go after a networking application like Yammer, a social network like Facebook for businesses. But there’s a strong statement that Microsoft could make here with the high school and college student presence on Facebook. … Either way, this is good news for the collaboration space and just about everyone else. Businesses can cross their fingers and hope to see office application integration – on either Google’s or Microsoft’s end – in other enterprise collaboration services.”
IF: “Gmail and other email programs have tried to make previewing as easy as possible for all formats. So, for Facebook, one ramification of Microsoft’s special access is less value for users who want to share a document in any other format. Maybe the average user doesn’t want to share documents on Facebook in the first place, or maybe Facebook will find that users want to do more document-sharing with the service.”
Gerrit Eicker
Wyoming Goes Google
Wyoming is the 1st state in the USA to move all state government employees to Google Apps; http://eicker.at/Wyoming
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Wyoming is a state of many firsts. In 1872, it became home to the world’s first national park – Yellowstone. In 1925, its citizens elected Nellie Tayloe Ross the first woman governor of a U.S. state. Now in 2010, we’re thrilled that Wyoming is the first state in the country to announce plans to move all state government employees to Google Apps for Government. … Many other states around the country are using Google Apps, including departments in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York, and Oregon are also bringing Apps to their K-12 classrooms. All these governments are saving money while equipping their employees with modern collaboration tools that carry the assurance of federal government security certification.”
Wyoming: “Moving to one system for office technologies, including email, email encryption and security, instant messaging, groups, sites, calendar and video, will enable all state employees to easily communicate with each other, something that is not possible now. ‘The change to one email system will make communications better, faster and cheaper,’ said CIO Bob von Wolffradt. … ‘The economic impacts of migrating to a single system will result in $1 million of indirect savings annually, based on the 15 agencies not needing to own servers, licensing, and maintenance contracts or provide dedicated staff to manage the system internally,’ von Wolffradt explained. … Under a contract with Tempus Nova, the State of Wyoming will pay $5 million dollars to migrate e-mail systems to Google’s hosted email, security, e-discovery, encryption, and archive services and transition some 10,000 email accounts to the new services over the coming year.”
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Freelance Website Designer
That’s insane!!
Gerrit Eicker
Greplin
Search bar for your life: Greplin, in private beta, searches all online data, in one place, fast; http://j.mp/bjSegg
Gerrit Eicker
Projecturf
Use Projecturf to manage projects and teams efficiently, and virtually from anywhere; http://j.mp/90qjUN
Gerrit Eicker
Wave Over
Google: Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We do not continue developing Wave; http://j.mp/cogIlP
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily ‘liberate’ their content from Wave. – Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web.”
TC: “Maybe it was just ahead of its time. Or maybe there were just too many features to ever allow it to be defined properly, but Google is saying today that they are going to stop any further development of Google Wave.”
VB: “The announcement isn’t a huge surprise, given the tepid response to Wave as a product (as opposed to the hype that greeted its announcement). … Google has cancelled plenty of products before, but this feels like a particular letdown because it had built up Wave so much. … Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra described Wave as reinventing email, reinventing document collaboration, even reinventing communication. That kind of ambitious talk swept along a lot of fans (including me), but it crashed against the reality of Wave’s early product, which was both buggy and difficult to understand.”
SEL: “Google could potentially have simplified Wave and scaled it back, or focused it on fewer core features. And Google also probably needed to do some more outreach and education around the product. – Google has historically been reluctant to favor products or promote them, preferring instead to let them sink or swim on their own. Google’s philosophy surrounding new products is not unlike what happens when sea turtles hatch on the beach: those that gain adoption organically make it back to the water and live. Those that cannot or are intercepted by predators don’t. – Google Wave obviously didn’t make it back into the sea.”
NYT: “Wave had so many different features that it confused many users, who never figured out how it worked. Wave also has several competitors, ranging from Salesforce’s Chatter to Jive. – One of Wave’s major ideas – that the browser is replacing the desktop computer as the center of people’s computing lives – lives on at Google and is the central tenet of its Web-based Chrome operating system.”
RWW: “Why did Wave fail? Maybe because if you don’t call it an ’email-killer’ (and you shouldn’t) then you’d have to call it a ‘product, platform and protocol for distributed, real time, app-augmented collaboration.’ That’s daunting and proved accessible to too few people. Still, with a rumored 100 Google engineers working on Wave to date, a call from Google for more engineering collaboration less than a month ago, and such high hopes – it’s a bit of a shock to see it come to an end. … Proponents of the service say it wasn’t that complicated and was remarkably powerful. Maybe this failure should be chalked up as another example of how Google ‘doesn’t get social’ in terms of user experience or successful evangelism. After an immediate explosion of hype, it never felt like Google was really trying very hard with Wave.”
TC: “When BBC reporter Maggie Shiels asked about the reasons behind the product’s demise, Schmidt noted that Google liked the UI and a lot of the technology behind the product, but it simply to take off. ‘We try things,’ [Google CEO Eric Schmidt] said. ‘Remember, we celebrate our failures. This is a company where it’s absolutely okay to try something that’s very hard, have it not be successful, and take the learning from that,’ he continued.”
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Gerrit Eicker
Some additional thoughts from a conversation with Sam Liban (@FlightMemory):
@eicker “I think RWW is right: ‘Google ‘doesn’t get social’ in terms of user experience or successful evangelism’.”
@FlightMemory “Actually, the ‘social’ aspect (Orkut) is really a bug for Google. Maybe its just the size? But Wave was/is a neat tool. Well…”
@eicker “Without being arrogant: Wave was a great tool for us. But Wave has never been a great tool for ‘regular onliners’. Not yet. – To understand the power of Wave, you need deep understanding of concepts like wikis, IM, ‘new communications’. – Google designed a tool for 0.1% of the market. BTW: Google Buzz is facing the same problem. – And the core problem: Google is really, really bad in marketing and communications.”
@FlightMemory “Is it not always the case, that there is a gap between early adopters and ‘normal users’? I mean, look at fb, twitter and so forth. – Buzz is a clone. Clones are hard. Wave was innovation, but too high expectations by Google and media? Early adopters loved it.”
@eicker “True, but it’s not enough to have a great tool and a brilliant GUI. People need a purpose first. A problem the tool can solve. – That’s why you need to have faced the problems of wikis, IMs, eMails first to understand what Wave gives to you.”
@FlightMemory “Yes, purpose/use-case is important. But some apps develop the use case after they been launched. Could have happened with Wave… – You do remember, Twitter was a txt/sms service at start? :-) Apps can change their purpose once used.”
@eicker “The purpose is communications. And eMail works *great* for 99% of regular onliners…”
@Flightmemory “True, but 1% drives the net…” -
Gerrit Eicker
Guardian: “Like most people, you’ve probably heard of [Wave] but not actually tried it, which sums up the problem. What was it? The Wave idea was a centralised communications tool that combined the real-time advantages of Twitter with the aggregation of your email and chat, with collaborative documents too. Easy to dismiss as something too ambitious and far reaching, but perhaps the difficulty in describing its function was its biggest downall. Twitter managed to survive a similar fate (remember that momet of trying to describe it to a non believer?) but Wave was far more ambitious. … I’d file this under ideas that were just a little ahead of their time. With refinement, a clearer proposition and better integration with existing services, it would have stood a better chance. Wave was one stab at tackling our information overload, at providing a central hub for all the information we need to deal with every day. And it will be back, in one form or another.”
Winer: “Here’s the problem – when I signed on to Wave, I didn’t see anything interesting. It was up to me, the user, to figure out how to sell it. But I didn’t understand what it was, or what its capabilities were, and I was busy, always. Even so I would have put the time in if it looked interesting, but it didn’t. – However, it had another problem. Even if there were incentives to put time into it, and even if I understood how it worked or even what it did, it still wouldn’t have booted up because of the invite-only thing. It’s the same problem every Twitter-would-be or Facebook-like thing has. My friends aren’t here, so who do I communicate with? But with Wave it was even worse because even if I loved Wave and wanted everyone to use it, it was invite-only. So the best evangelist would still have to plead with Google to add all of his workgroup members to the invite list.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Google’s Graveyard:
– Answers
– Audio Ads
– Browser Sync
– Catalogs/Catalog Search
– Co-op (now Custom Search)
– Deskbar
– Dodgeball
– Free Search (then Co-op)
– Google X
– Jaiku
– Joga Bonito
– Lively
– Local (now only for Mobile Search)
– MK-14
– Music Trends
– Notebook
– Page Creator (now Sites)
– Personalized Search (now Accounts and Web History)
– Picasa Hello
– Print Ads
– Public Service Search (redirected to Co-op)
– SearchMash
– SearchWiki
– Shared Stuff
– Spreadsheets (now Docs)
– Video
– Video Player
– Voice Search (now Voice Local Search)
– Wave
– Web Accelerator
– Writely (now Docs)
Gerrit Eicker
Google Wave: a Lost Year
Google Wave turns 1 and sign-ups are open finally: Will it leave its niches in future? Probably not; http://j.mp/9CDdke
Gerrit Eicker 09:29 on 26. January 2012 Permalink |
Google: “In just over a month we will make some changes to our privacy policies and Google Terms of Service. This stuff matters, so we wanted to explain what’s changing, why and what these changes mean for users. – First, our privacy policies. Despite trimming our policies in 2010, we still have more than 70 (yes, you read right … 70) privacy documents covering all of our different products. This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google. … While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy. – Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies – and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the web. … The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. … Second, the Google Terms of Service-terms you agree to when you use our products. As with our privacy policies, we’ve rewritten them so they’re easier to read. We’ve also cut down the total number, so many of our products are now covered by our new main Google Terms of Service. … Finally, what we’re not changing. We remain committed to data liberation, so if you want to take your information elsewhere you can. We don’t sell your personal information, nor do we share it externally without your permission except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order. We try hard to be transparent about the information we collect, and to give you meaningful choices about how it is used… We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy practices as well as enable Google to improve the services we offer.”
Google: “One policy, one Google experience – We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. – This stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service now. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012. … Our new policy reflects our desire to create a simple product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. … If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. … By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.”
Google, Privacy Policy Preview: “As you use our services, we want you to be clear how we’re using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy. – Our Privacy Policy explains: What information we collect and why we collect it. How we use that information. The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.”
Google, TOS: “Our Services are very diverse, so sometimes additional terms or product requirements (including age requirements) may apply. Additional terms will be available with the relevant Services, and those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those Services. … You may need a Google Account in order to use some of our Services. … Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. – When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.”
GigaOM: “It certainly makes for a more personal experience – and really just confirms the direction Google has been heading in for a while – but it’s not necessarily a more-welcome experience. Personalizing someone’s search experience is potentially great, but potentially problematic if another user on the same device sees results they were never supposed to see. – That said, Google is making the right decision in announcing the changes up front and so publicly highlighting what the changes will be. … Google and Facebook, of course, are in a slightly different situation than are most other web companies. Both companies have settled with the FTC around charges of privacy violations, and among the settlement terms for both is that they can no longer misrepresent their privacy claims. So expect to this trend of privacy transparency – even as the sites continue to overhaul their platforms – to continue for at least the next 20 years.”
TC: “The main change, say Google, is that if you are signed into your Google account, Google will combine user info across its products to better serve account holders. As Google says: In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. – This is exemplified, says Google, in its more personalized search product that debuted recently, and received major criticism. You’ll see Google+ posts and data in your search results, and allows for the seamless transfer of data in between other services, including Docs, Calender, Gmail and more, says Google.”
pC: “The announcement is a bit puzzling given that so much of Google is integrated already. Indeed, the company has been taking flack for weeks after forcing users to opt-in to Search Plus Your World, a feature that displays personalized search results replete with friends, photos and so on. – So why the major announcement? In a word, YouTube. – While Google’s core products are already bundled into its search results (if a user is logged in), the popular video sharing site is not. … For Google users, this means that the personalized search results will likely become more personal still with the inclusion of video. … This policy may not only represent a way to fend-off antitrust hawks but, in the long term, a potential competitive advantage for Google.”
eWeek: “Google is changing its privacy policies around Google+, streamlining identity services and paring the terms of service. The move makes opting out hard, which will raise regulatory flags. … Google’s streamlining comes as regulators in the United States and Europe have criticized Google, Facebook and other Web service providers for offering long-winded and legally gnarled privacy protocols. … The Federal Trade Commission, already looking into Google’s search business practices and which had previously ordered Google to submit to 20 years of audits after breaching user privacy with its Google Buzz feature, will certainly take notice. … Increased personalization across Google Web services will also help improve Google’s ad targeting. Google downplays this benefit, but it is a major reason why it is changing its privacy policies; it wants to refine its ad-serving features to boost relevance for each of its 1 billion search users.”
Economist: “Some of this is welcome and arguably long overdue. Too many web firms have a smorgasbord of privacy documents laden with legal jargon that appear deliberately designed to deter people from reading them. If Google’s new master policy is more accessible and concise than its existing plethora of notices – and preserves the safeguards embedded in them – then it will be a great improvement over the status quo. – But the search firm’s plan to expand the ways in which it can use data provided by someone signed into a service such as Gmail, its e-mail service, or YouTube, its video-streaming site, is likely to provoke heated debate. … Critics fret that this is a departure from its traditional habit of giving people power over their data (for instance, by letting them extract it easily from Google if they want to as part of the firm’s “data liberation” initiative).”
Gizmodo: “Google’s Broken Promise: The End of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ – This has been long coming. Google’s privacy policies have been shifting towards sharing data across services, and away from data compartmentalization for some time. It’s been consistently de-anonymizing you, initially requiring real names with Plus, for example, and then tying your Plus account to your Gmail account. But this is an entirely new level of sharing. And given all of the negative feedback that it had with Google+ privacy issues, it’s especially troubling that it would take actions that further erode users’ privacy. … So why are we calling this evil? Because Google changed the rules that it defined itself. Google built its reputation, and its multi-billion dollar business, on the promise of its ‘don’t be evil’ philosophy. That’s been largely interpreted as meaning that Google will always put its users first, an interpretation that Google has cultivated and encouraged. … This crosses that line. It eliminates that fine-grained control, and means that things you could do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone number come March 1st. If you use Google’s services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy. Yet a real concern for various privacy concerns would recognize that I might not want Google associating two pieces of personal information.”
TC: “You Call That Evil? – There’s a nice little insider quarrel going on over Google’s just-announced privacy policy changes. A number of sites and commentators have let their fingers jump up mechanically in accusatory fashion. Google, caught red-handed being evil! – Here, I think, is a time when the word ‘bias’ is actually warranted. Everyone wants so badly for Google to do something truly evil (instead of just questionable or inconvenient) that their perceptions of Google actions are actually being affected. … What about not being able to opt out? What is it people want to opt out of exactly? The new, simplified privacy policy? What would you opt into instead – the older policy? Being tracked per-site instead of by account? Perhaps you would you like to opt into pre-Timeline Facebook as well? Maybe you’d like to opt out of Apple’s restrictions on selling your iBooks? How, specifically, are people being harmed by the new policy, and in what way can they be demonstrated to have less privacy than under the old system, under which the exact same data and behaviors were recorded, analyzed, and packaged? Google is not collecting more information, they are not selling new information, they are not changing anything but the level at which the data is collated before you are anonymized into an ad group (baseball, travel, Boston, gadgets) and exposed to ads targeted to your general type of consumer. – And of course, you can opt out of the part worth opting out of: ‘Opt out if you prefer ads not to be based on interests and demographics.‘ … The worst one can say about this change is that it causes yet more overlap between Google services that people may not have requested. If you call that evil, you’ve forgotten what evil looks like.”
Forbes: “Internet Freak-out Over Google’s New Privacy Policy Proves Again That No One Actually Reads Privacy Policies – What’s changing is not Google’s privacy policies but its practices. By combining information from across all of its services, Google will be able to better target users with ads, offer more innovative features, and, importantly for Google, better compete with Facebook. … I hate to tell you all, but Google already knew all these things about you – to get a sense of how much Google knows about you, check out the Dashboard – and already had permission to combine that info, they’re just now actually going to do that. And kudos to them for being so explicit about that.”
GigaOM: “The bottom line is that whether you see Google’s new privacy policy as evil or not depends on what you think the company’s purpose is: Is it to help users find information that is relevant to them? If so, then pooling information is probably good. But if Google’s potential distortion of that purpose with its personalized search and favoritism towards Google+ results has you suspicious about its motives, then it might look a little evil. In the end, you have to answer the question: ‘Does Google have my best interests at heart?’“