The purposes for the update are way more simple and common sensical than that. Until this change, pretty much every product had it's own privacy policy. I thin

The purposes for the update are way more simple and common sensical than that. Until this change, pretty much every product had it's own privacy policy. I think there were something like 70-ish different policies. For both users and people within the company having so many slightly different privacy policies is a complete mess. As a user, trying to keep straight in your head the subtle difference between gmail's policy and search's policy and the policies for photos, google+, blogger, etc. is probably impossible for most people. It gets even harder when products start interacting in interesting ways. For example, if you share a picture from a Picasa album to G+ contacts, which then generate message in gmail with pointers (or copies) of the picture, which privacy policy applies? If you're in gmail and you chat with someone from you circles, which policy applies? (Note - I'm not at all interested in debate about whether people like the features I used as examples. I am simply using examples off the topic of my head to try to show some of the problems inherent with having per-product privacy policies when the lines between products is blurring) The goal is that, by having a single and comprehensive privacy policy that applies to all Google products, it will be easier for users to understand exactly what promises Google is making and not making. It also makes it easier for engineers (like me) that are creating and improving products.