Profit comes before people. It’s the Monster of Mountain View Way.
When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.”
And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClick’s massive database of web-browsing records separate by default from the names and other personally identifiable information Google has collected from Gmail and its other login accounts.
But this summer, Google quietly erased that last privacy line in the sand – literally crossing out the lines in its privacy policy that promised to keep the two pots of data separate by default. In its place, Google substituted new language that says browsing habits “may be” combined with what the company learns from the use Gmail and other tools.
The change is enabled by default for new Google accounts. Existing users were prompted to opt-in to the change this summer.
Props to ProPublica for blowing the whistle on this latest privacy-endangering move by Google.
Google probably wanted to make this move years ago, but may have held off because of the uproar over previous privacy imbroglios (like Google Buzz and the Wi-Spy scandal). Now, however, the behemoth has gone ahead and knocked down the wall preventing its advertising business from fully exploiting user data to build detailed profiles of everyone’s browsing.
There are ways to fight back. Stop using Google products, turn on adblock, disable JavaScript and cookies by default, use tools like the EFF’s Privacy Badger to monitor and block cross-site requests. Take advantage of these tools!