Google Privacy Policy Undergoes Sweeping Changes (VIDEO)

Google has just announced sweeping changes to its privacy policies that will allow the search behemoth to share user data collected across multiple services, an update that promises to stir controversy and raise a few eyebrows.

The new privacy policies go into effect on March 1 and users have no choice but to accept the new changes. Those who don’t wish to do so can just stop using Google’s services.

The latest update to its privacy policy marks the latest in Google’s efforts to learn even more about those who use its services. and Apple have pretty much cornered the market in this regard, keeping users locked within their own propriety ecosystem, and now it seems Google wants to follow suit.

By combining the data it obtains about a user’s preferences across multiple platforms – including Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Picasa, Google Calendar, Google Search, Google Maps, etc. – Google can compile more complete profiles of the people using its products, and therefore serve up more targeted advertising.

In a post on the official Google blog, Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, writes:

First, our privacy policies. Despite trimming our policies in 2010, we still have more than 70 (yes, you read right … 70) privacy documents covering all of our different products. This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google.

So we’re rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way. While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy.

Clearly, Google is trying to position this as a way of creating a “beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google” and suggests that the new terms of service satisfies regulators’ call for “shorter, simpler privacy policies.”

Still, the fancy Dilbert-like mumbo-jumbo won’t keep privacy advocates and politicians from taking a very close look at the overhaul to Google’s policies, especially given that the company has had several run-ins with regulators as of late.

In 2011, Google settled charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission that the company’s launch of Google Buzz had “used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promises.” As part of that settlement, Google had to agree to submit to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.

Google has also faced antitrust scrutiny on Capitol Hill and the FTC has launched an antitrust investigation into whether or not the company has abused its dominance in search.

“There is no way anyone expected this,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group. “There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns.”

What do you think of Google’s radical changes to its privacy policy?

More in the video below and at http://www.google.com/policies/.