Law Makers Challenge Google’s Privacy Policy Update

Law makers have recently expressed their concerns about Google’s updated privacy policy, prompting the company to respond on Tuesday in a letter addressing the concerns that merely reiterated the points they have already made in official statements and on their own blogs.

Republican representative Cliff Stearns of Florida, the chairman of the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, and Democrat Henry Waxman of California of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, were primarily concerned, and expressed their reservations in a letter to Larry Page, Google’s chief executive. It was this letter that prompted the one from Google this week.

The brouhaha is concerned with the search engine giant’s recent announcement that it intended to consolidate its privacy policy between its many subsidiaries, which include Gmail and YouTube.  These changes have alarmed many users, as there is no way to opt out except by cancelling every service all together, and the new policy involved sharing user account information between most of the services Google offers.  Theoretically, this would allow the company to tailor its advertisements to specific users.  Pablo Chavez, Google’s director of Public Policy, has responded that the company understands why its users are concerned, but that the real issue lies with the choices users have about how data belonging to them is collected and how that data is then utilized.

Google currently claims that it is not possible for someone to log in to any of their services and not consent to sharing their information.  Google Search, YouTube, and Google Maps, however, will still function after March 1^st without requiring users to log in.  One suggestion offered by Google was that users create multiple accounts in order to avoid sharing information from their private lives that they would rather not have publicized.

According to Google, this unification of sixty of its services, thus putting them all under one privacy policy, was a decision made after recommendations from privacy experts hailing from all corners of the globe.  There have been many requests from these experts for companies to simplify the language in their privacy policies so they are more accessible and easier to understand by the common user.

Google’s letter also spoke to concerns expressed about the privacy of teenage users.  Their response has been to offer younger browsers guidance within the services themselves that will offer help to people not as familiar or secure with the internet on the ways to protect their privacy.  It will also make sure that settings can be of a more conservative nature designed to make certain that teenagers are not exposed to adult or offensive content.

Many users have reportedly expressed the opinion that they would rather leave Google’s services completely than be subject to this kind of privacy policy, which may push the company to question whether all the flak from this particular announcement is worth it, particularly in the light of its very public (and often not very pretty) competition with Facebook and Twitter, which has come about after Google developed its own social networking site, Google+.

Evan Fischer is a contributing writer for Orlando DUI Law Firm – Lawyers in Orlando FL , a team of dedicated and experienced DUI attorneys based in Orlando, Florida.