Last year, Google changed how you log into its many products
when it released the one account sign in.
We’ve all seen it,
“One password. All of Google.”
“Want to enjoy the best of Google? Just stay signed in. One
username and password is all you need to unlock more features from services you
use every day, like Gmail, Maps, Google+, and YouTube.”
It is nice to be able to use so many services using a single
username and password, but do you ever think about how “dangerous” it is, or
how much information Google is actually getting from you because of this? Using
a single account to store your email, calendar, contacts, documents, photos, videos,
music, search history, bookmarks, financial information, location history,
Google+ posts, blogs, apps, and undoubtedly much more – have you taken a second
to let all of that sink in?
Going back to storing all of those things in one single
account, think about the information that can be learned about you based on
your activity from that one single account. I know for me personally, anyone
could get to know me very well based on my Google activity.
Let’s talk specifically about the social networking site
Google+, because at this point if you want to have a Gmail account, or watch a
YouTube video, you have a Google+ login. As a social network, Google+ hasn’t
picked up much steam, especially in comparison to a network such as Facebook.
But, Google+ is imperative to the future of Google, and Google is using that to
its advantage.
Google says the site has 540 million users that are active
within the social networking site, but only a little over half of these users
actually visit (Clark, 2014). Some of these users, or former users, are raising
concern about the company forcing people to use Google under one account. What
is the reason behind the concern? – Google’s access to information, and their
use of the information to target ads. Privacy issues have been raised because
of the way brand advertisers for Google target ads to users based on searches,
friends, and their likes on Google+ (Clark, 2014).
Google does address their stance on privacy in the Policies
& Principles section of www.google.com.
Their statement reads,
“At Google, we pursue ideas and products that often push
the limits of existing technology. As a company that acts responsibly, we work
hard to make sure any innovation is balanced with the appropriate level of
privacy and security for others.”
Their Privacy Principles are as follows:
1.
Use information to provide our users with
valuable products and services.
2.
Develop products that reflect strong privacy
standards and practices.
3.
Make the collection of personal information
transparent.
4.
Give users meaningful choices to protect their
privacy.
5.
Be a responsible steward of the information we
hold.
In order to keep Google’s websites and services free of
charge, Google does use and sell advertising. But, Google does state they work
hard to make sure the ads are safe, unobtrusive, and as relevant as possible
through the use of cookies, IP addresses, and anonymous identifiers (Google,
2014). And, Google claims to terminate the accounts of hundreds of thousands of
publishers and advertisers that violate policies each year.
But, how great of a job does Google do at tracking
advertisers and actually terminating the account?
Just this past January Google agreed to several concessions
of being in violation of Canada’s privacy rights for the use of sensitive
health history in remarketing campaigns. Two years ago the Office of the
Privacy Commissioner issued guidelines stating ad targeting based on health,
financial information, or other interested that are considered “sensitive” is
prohibited. And, Google’s privacy policy states it “will not associate
sensitive interested categories with your cookie and will not use these
categories when showing you interest based ads” (Marvin, 2014).
In response to the case,
Google blamed advertisers for not following the policies and stated remarketing
criteria and user lists are determined by the advertiser directly. Google requires
all advertisers using this platform agree to specific policies, which prohibit
all forms of interest based on advertising involving sensitive categories,
including the use of user lists based on “health or medical information”
(Marvin, 2014).
After providing detailed information on how it monitors ads
and advertisers to prevent abuses, Canada’s privacy office found the monitoring
tools “were not scalable and had demonstrable shortcomings.” As a result,
Google said it will upgrade its automated review systems by June 2014.
This specific case makes it clear that although Google has
policies in place to keep information private and to keep transparency at the
top of their concerns, it falls by the wayside.
Google has also recently announced its acquisition of Nest,
a smart thermostat and smoke alarm device manufacturing company and users are
already questioning what Google will do with the data from these. This is
growing to be an interesting topic because Nest told users, “Our privacy policy
clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s
products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and that will not
change” (Crum, 2014). The main question at hand though – will Nest fall under
the veil of Google’s broad privacy policy that enables it to use daya from one
of its products with its other products for reasons?
At what point do you feel enough information and data
collection is enough? Or, do you feel that because Google gives us a lot of
products and services to use for free the data collection is just “part of it?”
For me personally, I would rather see advertisements that
are targeted towards my interests, purchases, and activities than random
unrelated ads that do not connect with me or my interests – especially if I am
going to see ads either way. And yes, as a marketer I see the value of interest
targeting from a business standpoint too. I do enjoy being able to use Google’s
products without having to pay but I don’t necessarily believe it is “part of
it” – I think even if these were paid services, we would still see
advertisements of some form and our data and information would still be being
collected.
References
Clark, Laura. (2014). Google using google plus to its
advantage. Retrieved from http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/google-using-google-plus-to-its-advantage/
Crum, Chris. (2014). Google enabled advertisers to target
users based on sensitive health info. Retrieved from http://www.webpronews.com/google-enabled-advertisers-to-target-users-with-their-sensitive-health-info-2014-01
Google. (2014). Advertising. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/technologies/ads/
Marcin, Ginny. (2014). Google remarketing ads found to
violate Canadian privacy law; to revamp ad review system by june. Retrieved
from http://searchengineland.com/google-remarketing-ads-found-to-violate-canadian-privacy-law-to-revamp-ad-review-system-by-june-182104
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