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COMMENTARY | According to a recent Yahoo! Finance report, Consumer Rights Group Says Google Broke its Promise - Yahoo! Finance, Google may soon know more off my personal information than I feel comfortable in sharing. The search engine giant plans to begin combining user information collected from all Google user products and sharing this information with Google Plus, You Tube, and its other properties.
What the Electronic Privacy Information Center is "up-in-arms" over is Google's failure to request its users' consent when sharing their personal information. In March of 2011, Google agreed to a privacy program that would protect it users' data and personal information. This promise came as a result of allegations by the FTC that Google had violated the FTC Act and compromised consumers' information during the launch of its social network, Google Buzz.
While it is true that individuals give up a certain amount of freedom when they choose to use a search engine site such as Google, this should not mean the search engine gets free reign over all an individual's personal information. I, for one, am highly uncomfortable with Google keeping track of how and where I spend my time online, only to target me with personal ads based upon what I have been searching for online.
Google claims that they have done nothing wrong and have notified users of this change to go into effect March 1st, giving all users ample notification and time to respond with any objections to this policy. I am not sure about other users, but how was I notified again? I don't remember getting an email or any other type of correspondence regarding any changes in sharing my personal information. Perhaps Google has grown too big to really care what its users think about privacy policies and other business practices.
What choice do I have if I want to access information on the Internet? Well, I certainly do have a choice. There are other search engines out there that may not be willing to give up so much of my personal information. I can choose to use those search engines instead of the Google site. It appears that Google may be leaving millions of its users no choice who are afraid of Google sharing too much of their personal information.
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