In case you haven’t heard, Google made a few changes to their privacy policy that has some people up in arms. No matter who you are, or what OS you use, chances are you use a Google product so this news is concerning. Now we say Google made changes but the reality of it is, Google didn’t really change much of anything. They haven’t changed what data they collect or any of your privacy settings. Everything remains the way it has always been, aside from the fact that they can now share your data across their own services. That means if you’ve been searching luxury cars on Google and head into Youtube, you’ll probably see video suggestions for Mercedes-Benz. To me, it’s more personalization rather than a cause for concern.

Of course if you still don’t trust them and would rather not share certain information, you still have all the same tools for limiting what and how your data is shared, as well as the option to not sign in to any Google products to begin with. Google has eliminated the 60+ privacy policies you would have normally had to agree to and combined them into one central privacy policy which is now written with less legal jargon, making it understandable to most. That’s most likely the reason people are upset as now they can actually read the privacy policy and are shocked at what they have been agreeing to all this time.

There’s going to be two sides to this story and what version you hear will depend on who you ask, but if you’ve been using Google’s services for a while now and have had no issue with how they use your data, then there’s nothing to panic over. For everyone else, hurry fast to your local hardware store before they sell out of pitchforks. Seriously, privacy concerns are very personal and important, so you can’t blame people for freaking out and I’m glad we have legislators and others keeping an eye on companies that collect any personal data, no matter their intentions.

If you’d like to learn more about Google’s new privacy policy, hit the source link below and educate yourself instead of falling victim to scare tactics or misinformation.

• SourceGoogle Blog