Google privacy changes, barely phased

Google has taken center stage in the search engine market.

Alongside the standard assistance in finding random bits and pieces of information, the tool also uses a viewer’s history to attempt to compose a profile about them.

This will, according to Google, allow the company to give readers advertising and content that better pertains to their lives.

Google has announced changes to their settings that will track a person’s information across all accounts on the different companies within Google’s system starting March 1.

One of the new elements is that a user cannot opt out of the settings.

One of the main components of this change also comes with the use of multiple website profiles all coming together.

With Google’s acquisition of Youtube, Blogger and other similar sites, there is an open range of information that can be accessed by Google.

The development of the wide range of data also gives Google the opportunity to create a diverse profile on individual users based not only on their searches using Google, but on all various sites within their searches.

This diversity of options gives a more complete representation of an Internet user and, according to the company, allows for more information to be crafted to fit a user’s needs.

When changes to privacy settings first began to take a turn for the mandatory, most users were up in arms.

The idea that the content one views will be used by a company to target you for specific material was frightening and restrictive.

Now, however, we are far less troubled by the collection of data about our lives. We lean toward indifference and even favor the idea, as it might allow for the information to better fit our needs.

As our society becomes more and more technologically dependent, we are less concerned with the restrictions on privacy that come with giving our information away.

The more comfortable we are with our data, the more likely we are to allow the information to be spread around, rather than worry about our privacy.

Additionally, the more information a group has about a given Internet user, the more likely it is that the content will be applicable with one’s life.

We, as users, are more comfortable with our privacy being limited if it allows the content we view to be more pertinent to our lives.

­— azoot@indiana.edu