Google's New View on Privacy

Last week, Google announced some changes to its privacy policy in order to better merge its many services: Gmail, YouTube, Google Calendar, Google+, Google search, among others. According to Google, it's so it can create "a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google."

As of right now, Google is limited in terms of what they can see of your personal information using their programs. Google is able to scan all of your email if you're a Gmail user; if you're a YouTube user, Google can track all of the videos you search. While they can see an awful lot, they cannot see everything… yet.

In Google’s new privacy policy, going into effect March 1^st, Google will be able to monitor and scan virtually all of your emails, appointments, and searches on both Google search and Youtube. With this information, Google claims they will be able to enhance their customers’ experience through ad placement tailored specifically for each user.

Google produced a video that shows exactly what the new policy will entail:

 In the video above, Google uses the example of a user searching the word “jaguar.” Judging by the history of the user’s previous searches and e-mails, Google can predict that the user is looking for information on jaguar, the animal, rather than a Jaguar, the car. By using specific pieces of information from our personal online activities, Google claims they are able to create an easier and more enjoyable experience for all users while significantly limiting the search results solely to links that specifically apply to your needs.

While better predicting search engine results sounds good in theory, it’s important that we don’t just agree impulsively without considering the consequences. In American Studies class, we have continually talked about the importance of sustaining our civil liberties.

We as Americans are granted the right to privacy in the Constitution. Is Google’s new policy giving them access to all of this personal information a violation of our civil liberties even if they let us know in advance and claim it is necessary to create a more effective search engine? Do we even have a choice to opt out? With the dependency society places on Google programs, is opting out even a realistic alternative?

What do you think?