We have all been discussing how dangerous is to give personal information to web pages, or to click on advertisements that are not trustworthy enough. Google seems to be our lifetime friend, the one that is constantly helping us with our homework. We have seen it get bigger and more technological with lots of services that appeal to our needs.We may think that way, but the Europe Union data protection watchdogs say that we may be wrong.
In March, 2012, Google was told to change their privacy policy since they were not giving clearer and specific information about its customers' personal information. Every kind of information such as credit card numbers, telephone numbers, addresses, names, even sharing videos on YouTube or clicking on advertisements can provide a huge amount of data (known as pool of data) without our consent.
The European law gives several privacy rules that must be followed, but Google does not seem to be doing it. The French data privacy regulator CNIL president says that Google had "months" to change their privacy policy. After they carried out an investigation, Google would have failed to place the limits of the users' information received; therefore, the EU data protection concluded and proposed several activities in which Google must make a change: reinforce users' consent by creating an particular button, and adapting tools for limited data, authorized purposes along with target aids that do not only pursuit more information to make their markets bigger, among others.Google risks taking this case to the court if they don't make a fast decision and improve what the E.U is requiring.
Does Google really try to satisfy our needs and protecting our information at the same time? or is it just an strategy so we could be aware of the information we provide to make Google go down?
Here is a video where you can see the European Comission setting how to protect internet users' information.
First of all, I really liked the word "watchdogs." Really good.
ReplyDeleteNow, the thing with Google may be simpler; what if Google's executives and all of the people running the system have made a deal with other companies? what was dealed (probably) was the information users involuntarily share, in order for companies to be aware of what preferences users have and thus coming up with projects and products according to the demand. Probably.
That's interesting, Matías. I've grown really skeptical of many of the social networks nowadays. Although I'm an user, I try to provide just the necessary information. The people who are in charge of the privacy policies are professionals, and as professionals, they know EVERYTHING about internet, about marketing, and about publicity and how to make it work. Other companies may have agreements or "deals", as you put it, with Google and other type of services, and I agree with you at that point. The thing is that we don't know what's going on behind the pretty and colorful cover of Google.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting as most of us are users of Google. Therefore, I would say that even tough we are aware of what may be happening (not only with Google, but also with many others social networks) we will continue using them. The reason might be that we don’t get to feel that our privacy is been violated. Far away from that, the services that we can get from those websites are more than the damage that we can perceive from them.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point of view, however, I would dare to say that most of consumers and users are not aware of what advertisements may hide behind the nice colors and puns. I haven't felt at any moment that the personal information that I provide is being wrongly used. But maybe it has being used without even knowing it, and that's because all the privacy policies remain unclear and most of the times all the explanations are 3 pages long and no-one likes to spend 10 minutes reading something that we might not understand at a first glance. The call is to fix the way in which the policies are explained. In fact, there are certain pages where consumers are likely to purchase products when their privacy is well protected. The reason? policies are accessible, clear and straight to the point to the consumers.
DeleteI wonder if everything I check on google is watched, can a company reach me and appear things as adds?
ReplyDeleteI mean, if I'm looking up about travelling, is there is going to appear an airline advice in somewhere? well, actually it happens a lot.
Maybe, internet security is reaching other levels, and the awareness should be in the user and how he/she has to get informed.
It's really hard to figure out who is the one who have to be prepare for the other one.