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One Policy to Rule Them All – Google Changes Their Privacy Policy
There has been a large amount of coverage in both industry news and in main stream media about Google’s new Privacy Policy. Google used to have 60+ different privacy policies for all of its different services. Starting March 1, all Google products will follow one new Privacy Policy.
What has changed?
Under the new privacy policy, users can no longer “opt out” of their online behavior being tracked across properties. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land summarizes this new policy nicely: “Rather than people signing up for individual products, Gmail, YouTube and so on, they’re now signing-up for Google… It’s similar to how you sign-up for Facebook, rather than individual products within Facebook.”
Google says that the policy not only consolidates their various policies into one, but will also enhance their services, potentially providing more personalized search results and smart notifications using calendar and contact information. Critics claim that Google is violating users’ privacy, since there is no option to opt out of the share settings outside of deleting your Google Account.
So how does this affect your practice?
Beyond your individual user behavior, this privacy change shouldn’t have a significant effect on your practice’s marketing efforts right now. If Google does begin using all this new data to enhance its search and advertising, this will likely bring some changes to the best practices in search engine optimization. In the meantime, we encourage you to view the short video Google provided about the upcoming policy change.
We will continue to keep a close eye on this policy change and keep you informed of any changes that may affect your practice. To receive regular updates on Google’s privacy policy changes and other topics that may affect your practice, be sure to subscribe to this blog through email or your favorite RSS reader and receive updates automatically!
About the Author
George Freitag is a Search Engine Optimization specialist at Sesame Communications. With many years of experience working with dental and orthodontic professionals and other local businesses, George utilizes current best practices to help hundreds of Sesame Members optimize their online marketing strategies.