• Google Streamlines Its Privacy Policy. Should Facebook Be Next?

    Friday, September 3rd, 2010

    Alexia Tsotsis is the co-editor of TechCrunch. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Media industry. After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in... → Learn More


    Location-based service Echo Echo recently posted the above image to their blog in a (successful) attempt to garner some media attention as the debate around online privacy continues to rage.

    As extreme as their“If Mark Zuckerberg Cared About Privacy” example is, it does call attention to the needless complexity of various web service privacy agreements, settings and policies.

    In the wake of a $8.5 million lawsuit settlement today, search giant Google made a gesture of good faith in the “caring about privacy” department, assuring users that it was taking steps in order to make the minutae of online privacy easier to understand.

    “For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, ‘The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,’ since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies.”

    Perhaps this concerted movement towards being more transparent and simple with regards to privacy would also work well for Facebook which, like Google, is currently involved in various privacy scuffles.

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