Google's new privacy policy
Mar. 1st, 2012 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatNot entirely getting the panic.
I fully recognise that there are probably some people who were relying in an important way on Google Search, Google Mail, YouTube and Blogger keeping their information separate. However Google has given lots of warning that the change is coming, and I don't see any reason in principle why a web-based company should not share information between all its web-based services so long as it's up-front about the fact. So I find it hard to work up even the low-level sense of outrage I occasionally manage when Facebook springs some sweeping change to privacy settings on me.
I do, of course, see that Google's emphasis on "real names only" for Google+ etc may prevent people with legitimate reasons to operate pseudonymously when online from accessing Google's other services. But its real names policy seems to me to be tangential to the issue of linking its data. Obviously the issues interact, but I see more reason to fight the real names only policy than to fight the new privacy policy.
What I'm really not clear about is why it is particularly important that I, personally, take various steps (or should have done since it's now March 1st and so I'm basically doomed) to scrub my information from all Google's platforms. I mean this is the company whose search engine (when it confesses to knowing anything about me at all) thinks I'm a man, between the ages of 25 and 35 who's main interests are computer games, American football and women's clothing. I wouldn't actually be complaining if they could join a few more dots than that, to be honest. I should really re-check it, come to think of it, and see if, now they've linked my web search to my Google+ account, they've managed to work out I'm female.
Maybe I'm failing to see the panic because I'm moderately careful about who gets what personal information anyway, and have never assumed that any company (especially one based in the US) is going to keep it entirely secure and inviolate. I also suspect I tend to over-estimate rather than under-estimate the ease with which my online identities could be linked. Frankly, I was surprised to learn that Google+ wasn't already linked up with Blogger, YouTube and Search!!
Maybe I'm failing to see the panic simply because I don't really use most of these services. I use search a lot, I post videos for family to YouTube, but my usage of all the over services is minimal to non-existent.
I fully recognise that there are probably some people who were relying in an important way on Google Search, Google Mail, YouTube and Blogger keeping their information separate. However Google has given lots of warning that the change is coming, and I don't see any reason in principle why a web-based company should not share information between all its web-based services so long as it's up-front about the fact. So I find it hard to work up even the low-level sense of outrage I occasionally manage when Facebook springs some sweeping change to privacy settings on me.
I do, of course, see that Google's emphasis on "real names only" for Google+ etc may prevent people with legitimate reasons to operate pseudonymously when online from accessing Google's other services. But its real names policy seems to me to be tangential to the issue of linking its data. Obviously the issues interact, but I see more reason to fight the real names only policy than to fight the new privacy policy.
What I'm really not clear about is why it is particularly important that I, personally, take various steps (or should have done since it's now March 1st and so I'm basically doomed) to scrub my information from all Google's platforms. I mean this is the company whose search engine (when it confesses to knowing anything about me at all) thinks I'm a man, between the ages of 25 and 35 who's main interests are computer games, American football and women's clothing. I wouldn't actually be complaining if they could join a few more dots than that, to be honest. I should really re-check it, come to think of it, and see if, now they've linked my web search to my Google+ account, they've managed to work out I'm female.
Maybe I'm failing to see the panic because I'm moderately careful about who gets what personal information anyway, and have never assumed that any company (especially one based in the US) is going to keep it entirely secure and inviolate. I also suspect I tend to over-estimate rather than under-estimate the ease with which my online identities could be linked. Frankly, I was surprised to learn that Google+ wasn't already linked up with Blogger, YouTube and Search!!
Maybe I'm failing to see the panic simply because I don't really use most of these services. I use search a lot, I post videos for family to YouTube, but my usage of all the over services is minimal to non-existent.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-01 12:54 pm (UTC)But, as you say, if its going to be a catastrophe if someone discovers something about you, then don't reveal it online, especially in any social networking space. Or, if you do, be careful enough about your anonymity that the linkage of a couple of data bases won't bring the whole thing crashing down.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-01 12:57 pm (UTC)I try to keep most things separate still now, mainly because I have high hopes of becoming a published author one day, but it's not all that difficult to connect Kayim to my RL identity.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-01 03:24 pm (UTC)I've had a couple of nasty moments, once when a student wrote an abusive email about my daughter (and that caused me to place most information about her and my family behind various sorts of password protection - it's not super secure but someone has to be doing more than a bit of random stalking late at night while drunk to find out much about her) and once the aforementioned trolling, which mostly demonstrated that your average troll isn't prepared to look far and really does just lose interest if you refuse to respond to their trolling. I have gradually worked out boundaries for what sorts of information I'm prepared to put where, and I'm more careful than some about sharing passwords between services, but most of what I do comes down to common sense and an assessment of what the likely risks are.
Not sure about the published author thing. I get the impression that with any degree of celebrity comes the need to manage your web presence very carefully because fan backlash is never pretty and inevitable to a certain extent, so you need ways to separate out fan contact from friend contact so you always have a place to run and hide and be yourself. So that's a very particular case when you need identities to be difficult to link.
Someone actively and determinedly malicious could cause a lot of trouble, but they can almost whatever you do. I feel I'm fairly secure against drive-by troublemakers though.