Much has been made of the dangers of trusting all your private data to Google. Not only does the search giant host your emails and contact lists, but your entire search history, your blog posts, your documents, your YouTube videos, and even your phone records. In response to growing concerns as to what they might do with all your data, Google released the Google Privacy Dashboard this week–claiming to be the “first Internet company” to offer such a product. The official blog post explains:
Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google’s philosophy, and today, we’re happy to announce that we’re doing even more.
The Dashboard aims to give users greater transparency and control over their data. Users log in to their account and can view exactly what data Google hosts from over twenty products. For each product, the Dashboard provides direct links to the privacy settings for that service. Google concludes, “The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we’re delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard.”
Given Google’s grand proclamations about the groundbreaking Dashboard, response to the announcement has been subdued at best. Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog has been one of the most vocal opponents to Google’s privacy policies. The organization said the Dashboard was a step in the right direction, but wanted Google to give “the ability to stop being tracked by the company and to delete information associated with their computer’s IP address from the Google servers.” One advocate added, “If Google really wanted to give users control over their privacy it would give consumers the ability to be anonymous from the company and its advertisers in crucial areas such as search data and online behavior.” The group suggested that Google added a “Make Me Anonymous” or “Don’t Track” button to each service listed in the dashboard.
Outside of advocacy groups, response to the Dashboard was mostly negative. Tech blog Mashable wrote, “Sure, it’s nice to have all these in one place, should you ever want to review all your private information stored at Google at once, but there’s nothing really new about this list; you could even call it a privacy-related compilation. Unfortunately, it’s also an unpleasant reminder of just how much data you’re giving out to Google (and other online services).” Valleywag noted, “But, really, it just scares the crap out of you. Google knows all.”
The Dashboard clearly was not received as Google anticipated–it certainly is only seen as the first step in the right direction. Will they allow users to remain anonymous and prevent data from being attached to their IP address? Will they allow users to instantly delete all their data from Google’s servers? Would they allow the police to subpoena access to a user’s Dashboard? Only time will tell how Google will live up to its promise of “choice and control.”
– Google Dashboard explained on YouTube.
– Check out what Google knows about you here: www.google.com/dashboard
Yale Law Tech 