22 January 2012
Big Brother+
January/24/12
Who knew that the vast, omnipresent surveillance state would come with an account sign-up and a cookie?
Google recently announced that it would track all of the on-line activity of almost any Google product user with no ability to opt-out or block Google tracking or the resulting, even more highly targeted, marketing. As Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering wrote, “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”
From the Washington Post: “Google can track users when they sign into their accounts (e-mail, search…and other services). It can also use cookies or find out where people are [YouTube, Facebook, etc.] if they use a Google phone or its maps program. The company will now attempt to mix all of that information together into a single cauldron for each person”.
Obviously, this bold action is designed to try to take market share from competitors Apple and Facebook who have been more successful at keeping users “within their ecosystem of products,” and increase advertising sales based upon a more highly targeted demographic of less mobile customers. What remains to be seen is whether current Google customers (gmail, Google maps, Google, phones, etc.) will resist Google’s unilateral actions and cancel accounts, when these changes will actually result in more customer time in Google’s “ecosystem,” how useful will the data that is accumulated really be for marketing, which advertisers will find the new data useful and what future advertising proves compelling to Google customers.
In the meantime, come March 1, Google will be watching.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html
Google recently announced that it would track all of the on-line activity of almost any Google product user with no ability to opt-out or block Google tracking or the resulting, even more highly targeted, marketing. As Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering wrote, “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”
From the Washington Post: “Google can track users when they sign into their accounts (e-mail, search…and other services). It can also use cookies or find out where people are [YouTube, Facebook, etc.] if they use a Google phone or its maps program. The company will now attempt to mix all of that information together into a single cauldron for each person”.
Obviously, this bold action is designed to try to take market share from competitors Apple and Facebook who have been more successful at keeping users “within their ecosystem of products,” and increase advertising sales based upon a more highly targeted demographic of less mobile customers. What remains to be seen is whether current Google customers (gmail, Google maps, Google, phones, etc.) will resist Google’s unilateral actions and cancel accounts, when these changes will actually result in more customer time in Google’s “ecosystem,” how useful will the data that is accumulated really be for marketing, which advertisers will find the new data useful and what future advertising proves compelling to Google customers.
In the meantime, come March 1, Google will be watching.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html