An overview of Google’s privacy policy changes
Google’s new privacy policy will take effect Thursday. Since Google’s beginning in 2000, its privacy policy has changed nine times and, as expected, each version has gotten increasingly longer as Google has expanded its services.
While the newest privacy policy has undergone the largest change in the past seven years, much of its basic content has been preserved since the beginning. The differences reflect the growth in the number of Google services and Google’s desire to consolidate privacy policies across its products.
What’s new?
The biggest change is that users who have Google accounts will have their information shared among all of Google’s services. In a Google blog post, Director of Privacy Alma Whitten said “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”
The newest privacy policy is clearer about how users can control their own information on Google. With the Google Dashboard and the Ads Preferences Manager, users can control what information is being shared and opt out of certain advertising services.
The new policy is also much more descriptive about how the policy will benefit the user. For example, while previous versions of the privacy policy said the lag between the user deleting information and the information being removed from backup systems was due to “the way we maintain certain services,” the newest policy explains that the reason behind the lag is to “maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction.”
The other changes won’t be as noticeable in regular use. As mobile devices are becoming more popular, Google is responding by collecting more information about user devices, such as the hardware model, operating system, or mobile network. Google is also collecting and storing information locally on mobile devices.
History of Google’s Privacy Policy
Google’s first privacy policy archived online is dated August 14, 2000. With a word count of 653, it is more than three times shorter than Google’s newest privacy policy. Most of its content is still present in Google’s newest privacy policy.
The next privacy policy was released nearly four years later on July 1, 2004. Reflecting the growth of the company since 2000, this version introduced the Google Account to the policy.
The next six privacy policies ranging from October 14, 2005 to October 20, 2011 followed a very similar template, reusing much of the same wording in each policy. Each policy reflected the growth in Google’s services, with the 2008 version addressing affiliated companies DoubleClick and Postini and the 2009 version incorporating a section on “gadgets” and “location data” reflecting the increasing popularity of Google Maps for mobile.
For more information about Google’s privacy policies, visit Google’s Privacy Policy page.
Joanna Kao is a Spring 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.