Most avid Internet users visit search engines multiple times a day. Most users don’t realise that their computers leave behind valuable trails of information during search engine usage. What most users also don’t know is that search engines collect logs of the search terms, while matching these search terms to get your name, computer address and the kind of information you might have shared with the said search engine.
No wonder, Google’s announcement of privacy policy measures created widespread ripples and led to mixed reactions across the world. Google provided a link to lead a user to the Privacy Center web page.
Critics are crying foul at the timing of Google’s announcement. It seems to be a strategic move to quell controversy about Google’s privacy policy rather than a measure to ensure that standard safety practices are followed for the sake of users.
Interestingly, all of Google’s competitors, such as Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL, already provide links to privacy policies on their home pages.
This raises several interesting questions:
- How could Google be so complacent about its privacy policy?
- Why is Google so late in conforming to the law?
- Why has Google’s announcement provoked competitors like Yahoo to suddenly revise their current data retention policies?
After all, till Saul Hansen questioned the Google privacy policy in his column, this issue wasn’t even something any one noticed. To read Hansen’s column, click here.
If you have a website that’s working well and you are wondering why a privacy policy matters to your website business, read this:
- The privacy policy of your website impacts how any given search engine, including Google, evaluates the quality of your web pages.
- The moment you add a privacy policy to your website, you add a sense of reassurance for your users that your site would not misuse any information or disclosures. It also indicates that your business is truly legitimate and works legitimately as well.
Safeguarding the trust of your target audience is of utmost importance. That is why a privacy policy has gained so much importance.
Coming back to Google’s announcement, it might seem ironic that lesser known search engines are better at respecting user privacy concerns. Take http://ixquick.com for instance. This site makes it a practice to delete the IP addresses of its users within 48 hours. This was in fact the world’s first known search engine to guarantee improved user privacy policy way back in 2006.
