Digital Musings

Google has an incredible collection of user data. You trust Google with your name, contact information, address book, phone numbers and if you trust google with your eyes closed, your financial data as well. When you are online, almost certainly you would log in to your Google account to use their services better, so they have record of your online activity, which sites you visit, which ads you click on and which products you read about. This helps them target better ads and you see the ads are most relevant to you. There is no arguing, on the internet, which is such a huge place in itself, providing you with targeted content is a commendable job. Everyone has accepted it and many swear by it.

Privacy advocates have been opposing the Google-DoubleClick merger and Microsoft appealed to the US Senate panel to stop this deal from going through.As far as online privacy is concerned, you may not want to disclose your name for personal or business reasons, or not show your online activity to anyone else. You may like to share stuff with friends, but there are also things that you would rather keep private. So if at this moment Google jumps in and discloses one part of your account to all your contacts? Not even bothering to ask you, just lay it out in the open.

So How did Google breach your Privacy?

What I am talking about here is the new Google reader feature that allows you to share your feeds with your friends. I think its a good feature, if you have a network of friends, who read similar stories and news. Its adds a bit of Social Flavor to the Google reader.

But what if you are using a Google account that you have used to interact with several people, just for correspondence?
3 days ago I corresponded with “some guy” about”something”, that doesnt make him my friend, and since I have exchanged mails with him, Google assumes he is a friend and adds my shared data to his feed reader. In a way he is reading stuff he isn’t supposed to and gets an idea about my online activity! This is the major complaint by many Google Reader users.This invoked a lot of criticism from some readers.

Some Comments on the new feature:

The Google Reader Help started a thread, where the Google reader users vented out their anger. Felipe Hoffa has recorded some interesting comments in his Slash Dot Journal. I found a few amusing so I have listed them below:

“This is a terrible idea, and a violation of privacy, and it contradicts your own documentation”. “Please don’t turn the best feed reader on the web into the shittiest social network on the web.”

“Please fix this and let us OPT IN to who we want to share with. PLEASE. Don’t make me leave my Google Apps!!”

“I have parents, relatives, business associates, all who use Gmail, in my contact list, and the only way to not share with them is to remove the contact? That’s INSANE.”

“I find the “social networkization” of Google’s services unattractive, and unfortunately, I can’t really opt-out of them.”

“I’m complaining because the articles I shared with my wife are now shared with my entire contact list, with no warning. In fact, this is precisely the worst sort of violation of privacy.”

Whew! There may be many reasons why anyone wouldn’t want to share, stuff one subscribers to. The main reason for this very vocal criticism was that Google brought this feature in as a surprise, with no opt out option.

Google has a very good reputation dealing with the privacy of their users.Its number one on my “Internet’s Most trusted Companies List”. They have been known to fix privacy related glitches in a blink of an eye, and have always worked hard towards maintaining the user privacy. But a new feature recently launched by them, really rocked their boat.

Google has a very well defined privacy policy. You can read it here. It clearly states that, “When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.” Although Google hasnt actually violated privacy, because there isnt any defined rule under which this data falls, the closest description about sharing of your personal data in their Privacy Policy is here.

But The Google Team has come out with an answer, unfortunately after about a week of criticism, but things will get back to normal now. They have introduced a feature via which you can better manage who sees your shared feeds.

You can now share the various tags under which you have saved the feeds, or can choose to keep them private.

Also, you can now, clear all you shared items or, can move them to a specific tag, which you would like to share from now on.

This isn’t actually a privacy violation, except for a few people, who would not like to share items on their feed reader. And now with these new features, they can control, who can see their feeds. So I guess, Google actually saved the day by responding to these complaints quickly. Enjoy using the Google reader, Its one of the best online feed readers around!

Would you be concerned if the feeds you read are shared without your consent? Do you think Google invaded your privacy by making all you feeds public?

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