Google adds privacy policy link to home page
The word “privacy” now appears on Google’s home page, with a link to the company’s privacy policy.
With that one word, the Web search giant heads off the growing controversy over whether its previous practice ran afoul of a California law, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which requires the operator of a commercial Web site that collects personal information to link to its privacy policy from its home page.
When The New York Times wrote in May that Google appeared to be violating the law, Google said that it did not believe that it was required to put a link on its home page. The company said that its privacy policy was easy enough to find, either on the page called “About Google” or by searching for “Google privacy policy” on its search engine.
Later, Joanne McNabb, the chief of California’s Office of Privacy Protection, said that her agency believes that Google should have a link to its privacy policy on its home page. After the issue buzzed about the blogosphere, four privacy groups wrote Google urging it to change its practices.
Google announced its change of heart Thursday on both its main corporate blog and on its public policy blog.
Both posts said, “We added this link both to our homepage and to our results page to make it easier for users to find information about our privacy principles.” Neither post mentions the California law.
In the main blog post, Marissa Mayer, the Google vice president who looks after the user interface of its search engine, reiterated that the company believes in keeping its main page short. She said that Google’s two founders told her the word privacy could only be added to the home page if another word was deleted, leaving the page at 28 words. So the copyright notice at the bottom of the home page was changed from “2008 Google” to “2008 - Privacy.” Mayer wrote that it is implied that Google is the one copyrighting the page.
Steve Langdon, a Google spokesman, said the company decided to do this now in response to queries: “Some users, bloggers, and regulatory bodies have asked us why we didn’t have a link, and, after evaluating, we decided that it was the right time to add one. While users have always been able to easily search for and find our policy before, or click through to it, this provides an easier path to learning about our privacy approach. We’ve also added the same link on the results page, as many users arrive on them directly.”
Langdon said he didn’t know what sort of contact Google had with California officials nor whether there was any discussion of legal action by the state. His statement above does note that the company was approached by “regulatory bodies.”
source : news.cnet.com
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