Newswise — ITHACA, N.Y. – Lee Humphreys, Cornell assistant professor of communication, offers insight into the new privacy rules going into effect on Google websites on March 1.
Humphreys studies the social uses and perceived effects of communication technology. She has explored mobile phone use in public spaces and emerging norms on mobile social networks in the United States. Her research has also examined privacy issues on Twitter.
Humphreys answers the following questions:
Can you explain what new Google privacy rules are intended to do?
“The goal for the new Google privacy policy is to have one policy to cover all of Google’s products and services, rather than separate policies for varying services. Google’s intention is to create a more integrated user experience and to simplify their privacy policy for their products. Under the new system, Google will be combining user data across their various services, whereas before certain data was kept separate."
Should consumers feel skeptical about the new rules?
“Maybe. The biggest concern about the privacy changes is that it will not be clear to users exactly what kinds of data are collected and integrated, and what their options are for opting-out of having their information collected and tracked."
How can consumers protect themselves online?
“Users should sign out of services and websites when they’re done, particularly if they’re using a public computer. Another thing users can do is to clear their history and cookies (a technology that websites use to track where we go on the web) on their Internet browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox. Users should also be aware that what they do on the web is tracked. Often this makes the web more useable and navigable. We can potentially find what we want faster because of this tracking, but it does mean that what we do is collected. And if we don’t want your information collected, we need to educate ourselves about how to opt-out of these systems."
What concerns do you have about these new rules?
“Google makes over 95 percent of its money from advertising. These ads are targeted based on what Google knows about us, such as the information they’ve collected about us. People should be able to control what personal data a company collects about them and how they use it. Control is the first right of the White House’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights released last week. If Google makes its money from collecting information so that they can target ads, there’s an inherent tension for them to provide easy tools for people to opt-out. For example, if everyone uses Google’s Advertising Cookie Opt-Out Plugin, Google may not be able to collect the kinds of information that makes their advertising program so successful. While Google offers the plugin, they don’t feature it in their video about the policy change. Instead they featured Dashboard which, while helpful, is not as transparent as it could be. The concern with these changes is that all of the information Google collects is now tied to an individual Google account holder and it may be more difficult for users to control how their information is used.”
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