Google's privacy policy changes happening in October | Hacker News Reader

Google's privacy policy changes happening in October

google.com

60 pointsabraham28 comments

Gotta love that they provided a diff instead of just updating it and saying it's been updated.

As opposed to Apple: http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001060.html

I 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.

It 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.

If you want to see a complete evolution of the privacy policies, you can use http://www.goodiff.org/ . For example, the privacy faq of Google:

http://www.goodiff.org/changeset/587/google/www.google.com/p...

That is an awesome service. But why are they tracking so few privacy policies? Where, for example, is Facebook?

"Goo" diff, not "good" diff.

Ahh, I see.

I never realized that Google Dashboard existed until reading this (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...

October 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.

I 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.

When 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.

I 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.

I 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.

Just 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.

That 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.

Putting it into context: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-...

The policy is still the same, the wording is less "lawyerly".

Many policies become "lawyerly" to avoid ambiguities and loopholes. What happens when you make it less "lawyerly"?

It becomes easier for lay-people to understand.

and lawyers to abuse

Meh. The space of bad things google will realistically be able to do before and after the update is basically unchanged.

You speak as a lawyer or a layman?

Mostly 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.

That is a layman.

It hardly seems more clear than the old privacy policy. I mean, is it really so high in the agenda of google to worry about people reading four or so words saying that google cares about their privacy!

There are some updates such as calling gadgets third party applications which is really just keeping up with the times. However, unless they have bored employees with nothing to do but surfing around to see what they can make more customer friendly - this is from a company with one of the poorest customer services - I do not see why would they simply decide for the fun of it to change their privacy policy.

If nothing else, the tone of the new privacy policy is: deal with it. The rest of it we will find out shortly in the next decade.

> That is a layman.

So, are you a lawyer, or just a purveyor of FUD and ad hominems (literally -- you're saying I'm wrong because of some property about me rather than a weakness in my argument)?

> It hardly seems more clear than the old privacy policy.

It's more clear on the basis that twelve other products' privacy policies have been rolled into this one, and this one is still substantially shorter than it was (which would be more clear if we could compare before and after side-by-side rather than with the strikethroughs inlined). You now have to look in fewer places to get an understanding of the totality of Google's stance regarding privacy and your information.

> However, unless they have bored employees with nothing to do . . .

Part of the legal team's job is to periodically revisit external legal documents and make sure they convey the messages they're meant to as well as possible. It's extraordinary that you can see the sinister in something so innocuous.

you're saying I'm wrong because of some property about me rather than a weakness in my argument

I said that it is easier for lawyers to abuse, to which you replied that really you do not think so to which I asked if you are a lawyer. To which you replied no. At this point, I do not quite see what your argument is.

I am of possibly the sceptical opinion that a company like google who hardly cares to be customer friendly does not just decide to be friendly in some area which mostly affects their business, that being the policy with how they use the richness of data they gather. I will however concede. It is for the months and year coming to show their true motivations.

Quite the contrary, the way I'm reading it.

on one reading, for example, the previous policy limited future changes to 'minor' ones; this is important because honestly., who ever revises their opinion on their use of a site based on their monitoring of a privacy policy? a minute fraction. Now, "and we expect most such changes will be minor" is gone.

Their freedom to hand the data to third parties is now much, much wider (for <processing> not the operation, improvement or development of services).

Search the page for 'sensitive' - this is vital. Look: before, google refused to collect or use it without your consent. Now, it can, without consent; it merely requires consent before sending it to third parties. Sensitive info is defined as 'related to confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality and tied to personal information.'

They also now retain the right to store the content of the SMSses you send.

They no longer bind themselves by promising to store credit card data in encrypted form.

They no longer promise to provide services, like google search, that you do not need to provide personal information to use.

They allow themselves to burrow detail about privacy policies in myriad 'help files' or 'specific notices'.

Half expected to see it replaced with:

"At Google we recognize that revenue is important."

edit: Aw, come on!

Nah, downvote me, you're right.

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