Search privacy and Personalized Search
Posted by Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy
Counsel
Online privacy isn’t always an easy thing to understand—or to
explain. When I recently joined the company, I was happy to learn
that Google was continuing with the effort to make our privacy
practices (and your choices) even clearer and more accessible. We
are using YouTube to post videos that explain how, when, and why we
collect information about searches, and how you can protect your
privacy while using our search engine.
If you watched the
video, you
learned about some of the information we collect (IP addresses,
cookies, and search queries) and how we use this information to
improve your search experience as well as prevent against fraud and
other abuses. We appreciated all of the feedback we got in response
to the first video.
In response to your requests for more detailed information, in our
second video we're offering a closer look at personalization
and the privacy tools available when you choose to personalize your
search. Personalization has been an area that raises concerns about
privacy, and we want you to understand how we personalize search
results while protecting your privacy.
As the video explains, search algorithms that are designed to take
your personal preferences into account, including the things you
search for and the sites you visit, have better odds of delivering
useful results for you. So if you’ve been checking out sites about
the Louvre and you search for [Paris], you’re more likely to get
results about the French capital than the celebrity heiress. The
privacy tools we’ve designed — such as “pause” and “remove” buttons
— help put you in control of personalization.
So sit back, take a look, and then
tell us what you think about this video (and the earlier one
too). We look forward to hearing from you.
Tags: , CounselOnline, Horvath, Jane, Posted, Privacy, Senior