Public Or Private: Keeping Google From Being 'Evil'

[Mosaic]

Google, whose unofficial corporate motto is "Don't Be Evil," mainly uses this data for targeted ads. But this past week, it announced changes to its privacy policy in order to merge user data across its various services: Gmail, YouTube, Google Calendar, Google+ and Google search. According to the company, it's so it can create "a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google."

The changes go into effect March 1, and you can opt-out, but it means it will limit the usefulness of many of Google's services and even Android phones, which run on Google's operation system.

Google vs. Congress

Google's new policy is getting a lot of negative attention on Capitol Hill, in part, because the company now allows kids as young as 13 to sign up for its services. This means Google can, in theory, build a profile of you over several decades.

This worries Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a senior Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. He tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that what he finds most objectionable is that users don't seem to have much say in all this.

NPR's staff did this story, read more: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146062607/public-or-private-keeping-google-from-being-evil

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Its a good debate, a +0.5 for congress.

They are tuned in to some extent to the issues. But in the end, this particular thing is not that big of a deal, in the context of everything else. My two cents is its time to get some good thinkers together to put forth some political guidelines for the future of these issues in simple language, so congressional figures can figure out where they stand and take thoughtful stances.