

Google's privacy policy changes happening in October - abraham
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy_changes_2010.html

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

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

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photon_off
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.

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Andrew_Quentin
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.

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adulau
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...](http://www.goodiff.org/changeset/587/google/www.google.com/privacy_faq.html)

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

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s3graham
"Goo" diff, not "good" diff.

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rwl
Ahh, I see.

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andrewgioia
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...

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indiejade
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.

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sabat
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._

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davidcuddeback
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.

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houseabsolute
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.

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startupcomment
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.

