Google, Good to Know | Hacker News Reader

Google, Good to Know

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46 pointsjnorthrop8 comments

It's definitely an interesting strategy, but I think it relies on two parts that other companies aren't currently following which require real changes to how they operate, not just better PR:

1. Use the data for something other than solely advertising or analytics, which meaningfully improves the service in some non-trivial way. (Some other companies do this, e.g. people are quite happy to give OkCupid as much personal information as it wants, if they feel it'll improve matches.)

2. Give you enough control over your data that people feel more comfortable giving it in the first place. With Google, there are places where you can delete it; for example, if you let Google track your physical location in Latitude, you can not only opt out again later, but you can even retroactively delete all the location data that was ever collected. Most companies don't want to allow that. Facebook, for example, famously provides no way for you to actually delete your profile, in the sense of it really being deleted from Facebook's servers.

Besides deleting it, Google also tries to make you feel like it's "your" data in the sense that you can export it, via its "Data Liberation Front" initiative that has no real counterpart in other data-intensive companies.

Why do you think Google really deletes anything ever?

Google's privacy policy states, "...or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes."[1]

Of course the key phrase is "legitimate business purposes" but Google wouldn't have included the "right to be forgotten" phrasing into their privacy policy if they weren't willing to make a good faith effort to remove information upon request. Otherwise it just puts them at risk of a lawsuit.

http://www.google.com/privacy/privacy-policy.html

Gmail deletes messages and accounts within 60 days:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail#Privacy

The harm that Google could do to themselves by not deleting data that they must delete is far greater than the use they could get out of that data. Villainy does not always maximize profits.

Even worse, in the UK they've managed to trick the generally trusted national charity Citizens Advice Bureau into endorsing their "Our cookies are for your convenience!" claptrap. The CAB is featured prominently on their marketing all over.

http://www.google.co.uk/goodtoknow/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8827809/Google-...

Funnily enough NoScript throws a clickjacking warning on http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/online-safety/ when I try to play the video.

Especially concerning privacy, these cartoons remind me of the Qatar censorship page:

http://i.imgur.com/MfKOJ.jpg

They are trying to make something nefarious look fun. I mean, it's great that the barista down the street knows that like cream with my coffee, but I wouldn't want her to know everything about me. So why would people feel comfortable allowing a distant corporation to "get to know them"?

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