If you have a Google account, you should be aware that Google is updating its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service Policy effective March 1, 2012. Instead of different policies for each of its different services, there will now be one policy for all of their services. What does this mean for you? Basically, that it will become more difficult for you to be anonymous when you login to Google and use various Google services. Google will not only be gathering information about you, but will also use that information to “offer you tailored content.” With these new policies, Google is going to combine the information that it gathers from its different services to “push” content to you such as ads for products based on your interests à la Facebook. In fact, Google has recently launched its own social network, Google+. But even if you don’t login, Google‘s servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit their sites. These “server logs” typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.
“Google now watches consumers practically everywhere they go on the Web — and in real life, when using a mobile phone,” said Christopher Soghoian, an independent privacy and security researcher in Washington D.C. “No single entity should be trusted with this much sensitive data.”
The main issue with Google’s new policy is that it will now be combining information that it has on users. This could mean, for instance, that when users search via Google, the company will use their activities on sister sites like Gmail and YouTube to influence those users’ search results. Google has not done that before.