"We ain't backin' down," says defiant Google

Company tries to clear the air on new privacy rules

By Brad Reed on Fri, 01/27/12 - 2:40pm.

Google is pushing back on some of the criticism many in the press have tossed its way over the past few days. Google policy manager Betsy Masiello has taken to Google's public policy blog to clear some of the air about what the company's new unified privacy policy means for its users. Let's take a look:

A lot has been said about our new privacy policy. Some have praised us for making our privacy policy easier to understand. Others have asked questions, including members of Congress, and that’s understandable too. We look forward to answering those questions, and clearing up some of the misconceptions about our privacy policies that first appeared in the Washington Post.

So, here’s the real story:

You still have choice and control. You don’t need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube. If you are logged in, you can still edit or turn off your Search history, switch Gmail chat to “off the record,” control the way Google tailors ads to your interests, use Incognito mode on Chrome, or use any of the other privacy tools we offer.

OK, fair enough. It's good that there are tools for users who want to surf the web without Google tracking their every move. I suppose this mostly means that users will have to be far more vigilant in how they surf the web. So for God's sake, if you don't want advertisements for monkey feces to pop up in your Gmail account, log out before you search for monkey poo-flinging videos on YouTube.

We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google — whichever products or services you use. This is something we have already been doing for a long time.

And frankly I find it pretty creepy that Google wants to be this involved in my life. I mean, I don't want them using my location data sending me alerts if I'm late for a meeting or something. This is why I'll be using Microsoft Outlook for many of my calender appointments, though.

You can use as much or as little of Google as you want. For example, you can have a Google Account and choose to use Gmail, but not use Google+. Or you could keep your data separate with different accounts -- for example, one for YouTube and another for Gmail.

Well this would be fair if Google weren't forcing all new email users to create Google+ profiles but I get the picture.

I think the big takeaway here is that if you want your data on Gmail kept separate from your other services, then treat them as separate services -- create new accounts with new passwords and log out of those accounts before searching for something on Google Maps.

The trouble is, since I use Android as my smartphone OS, keeping all these services separate will be tricky since I'm always logged into my Google account on that device. (Reminder to self: Do not search for the poo-flinging monkeys on my Droid X...)

At any rate I'll be sure to keep an eye out for how Google addresses Android users' concerns. Or I might just switch to an iPhone...