6 ms·
Google's privacy policy changes happening in October
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- enomar 16y agoGotta love that they provided a diff instead of just updating it and saying it's been updated.
- blahedo 16y agoAs opposed to Apple: http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001060.html http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001060.html
- photon_off 16y agoI really liked the blog post... but I'm not so sure I'd have liked it without readability. I generally hate giving out design advice, because it's not my forte and if it works well then I'm OK with it, but you've got to lose the Comic Sans, and white-on-green is a killer when you leave the page.
- sabat 16y agoI like the fact that they do the diff format. This sentence is now crossed out, and I find that a little frightening: At Google we recognize that privacy is important.
- davidcuddeback 16y agoWhen I saw that, I immediately thought it was a joke on someone else's website. Then I looked at the domain, and I too was frightened. Edit: Other than that, I don't see anything alarming in the diffs.
- houseabsolute 16y agoI suspect that it's not that Google's feelings on privacy have changed, it's just that they've opted for brevity over flowery language. Saying "we care about privacy" as an internet company is basically content-free, because everyone does it.
- davidcuddeback 16y agoI suspect you're right, but it doesn't change the impact it had on me to see right there in the diff that they removed it. I'm not going to ditch Google now just because they removed a phrase from their privacy policy.
- startupcomment 16y agoJust because everyone says it does not mean that "we care about privacy" is a meaningless statement. It is a statement of conviction and demonstrates respect and care for its users. We can only imagine why this statement was deleted. On the one hand, Google's privacy policy says "we care about privacy" yet, on the other hand, certain aspects of Google's present business practices and future business plans as well as certain statements of Google's CEO could be construed to suggest the opposite. Probably Google's lawyers recommended removing this statement to avoid having users hold Google to account for possible contradictions between its privacy policy and its business practices.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- blahedo 16y agoThat was precisely my first reaction too. On the other hand, there are a lot of places where the stuff you might call the "whereas" clauses---i.e. why we do this---is also excised; the result is a bit leaner and probably easier to read. So, maybe not too scary. But yeah, that diff was alarming.
- yanw 16y agoPutting it into context: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-... The policy is still the same, the wording is less "lawyerly".
- lethargus 16y agoMany policies become "lawyerly" to avoid ambiguities and loopholes. What happens when you make it less "lawyerly"?
- houseabsolute 16y agoIt becomes easier for lay-people to understand.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoand lawyers to abuse
- houseabsolute 16y agoMeh. The space of bad things google will realistically be able to do before and after the update is basically unchanged.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoYou speak as a lawyer or a layman?
- houseabsolute 16y agoMostly as someone who can read. My point is that unless you or anyone can suggest a rational argument against clarifying this policy's language, I'm just not going to worry about it, and I don't think anyone else should either. "Lawyers can exploit it more easily" doesn't work as a rational argument for me. It seems like almost all privacy violations out there happen well within the constraints of privacy policies, or by accident. There's rarely ambiguity in a policy which gets exploited to enable something unexpected. It seems like a really low-concern area that doesn't deserve the kind of FUD I'm seeing in this thread. Especially in the case of a company like Google that could suffer for reversing its public stance on privacy.
- danilocampos 16y agoHalf expected to see it replaced with: "At Google we recognize that revenue is important." edit: Aw, come on! Nah, downvote me, you're right.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoIt seems that the only perhaps significant difference is apparently the crossing out of the words which state in so many words that google will use the date only for the purposes allowed under this privacy policy and no other purpose. Edit: Indeed after reading the plain version the words seem, and apparently above are not really necessary. The change might not be entirely significant, but it might in many ways be compared to the principle that the government can do only what is authorised to under the law while citizens can do anything that is not prohibited by the law. Whether it is significant that google has chosen to move from the former to the later I am not certain. They surely have the right to, they are not a government, but it is a significant change, rather than just trimming. Thus, unlike previously, they do not need to adhere to their privacy policy. They might therefore be free to, well I do not know, we will find out soon.
- adulau 16y agoIf you want to see a complete evolution of the privacy policies, you can use http://www.goodiff.org/ http://www.goodiff.org/ . For example, the privacy faq of Google: http://www.goodiff.org/changeset/587/google/www.google.com/privacy_faq.html http://www.goodiff.org/changeset/587/google/www.google.com/p...
- andrewgioia 16y agoI never realized that Google Dashboard existed until reading this (https://www.google.com/dashboard/ https://www.google.com/dashboard/). It's nice to be able to access all of the services/settings in one page, and a little frightening to see how much I really use Google and how much information I have stored there...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- indiejade 16y agoOctober 3rd? This is either a typo or perhaps this new privacy policy thing is not in effect until a month from today? "Last modification" date is a little misleading if the latter is true; the policy could have some sort of language regarding "effective as of DD_MM_YYYY" to be more clear.