Google Rated Bottom For Privacy
Written by on June 10th, 2007 in Ajax News.
A study from Privacy International has ranked Google at the bottom of a list of major internet destinations for privacy.
The study found that while a number of other Internet companies have issues with privacy, none comes as close to Google in “achieving the status of being an endemic threat to privacy”
Issue with Google included:
- Failure to provide an expungement option for retained data
- Failure to follow generally accepted privacy practices such as the OECD Privacy Guidelines and elements of EU data protection law
- unstated or indefinite length of time for data retention, without clear limitation on use or disclosure
Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel said in a response to the report that Google aggressively protects its users’ privacy and stands behind its track record.
Privacy can be a touchy subject; generally people want their privacy maintained and yet the delivery of many services from Web 2.0 companies is dependent on personal data to deliver personalized content. It has long been known that Google gathers more personal data than any other company, yet Google’s growing marketshare would seem to indicate that people are willing to ignore these privacy concerns. From an industry perspective, personalization is a defining quality of Web 2.0, without this data we would be winding the clocks back to 1999.
Do you care about Google gathering your data? Or do you welcome our Google overlords? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/123791021/