Back to Tech Blog homepage
Google has had several years of tussles now with privacy regulators. Three years ago European data protection commissioners began question what the company was doing with all the personal data it was gleaning from users of its search engine. In the past year, the company has faced outrage - at least in some pockets like Italy, Japan and Switzerland - over Street View, which provides panoramic, eye-level views of every street of major cities around the world.
Earlier this year, a leading privacy group called on the US Federal Trade Commission to consider shutting down Google’s web services until the company could better safeguard personal data. There have been a number of instances where Google Docs, Google Desktop and Gmail have had glitches which made users personal documents visible to others.
Now Google is trying to turn over a new leaf and show that it is being proactive on privacy. Through its official  blog the company on Thursday announced the launch of a new “dashboard” which allows users of its services such as Blogger, Picasa, YouTube and others to see at a glance what data is being kept about them. They can also edit and delete the data.
The aim is to make it more transparent what data Google keeps and make this aspect seem less mysterious and sinister. It is a reasonable start, and has been acknowledged as such by privacy campaigners. To give Google credit it has made several gestures on privacy over the past few years: from employing Peter Fleischer as head of privacy, to holding meetings with leading privacy campaigners to try to better understand their concerns.
The dashboard is a long way from addressing all issues, however. It does not show the data that is kept when people use the Google search engine - which accounts for the vast majority of the Google’s data. Google is still keeping this for three months longer than the European commission would like. Nor does it address concerns with Street View. Some intenet commentators have already branded the dashboard “uninspiring”.
But it is start, adding an element of transparency to Google’s operations and educating users about privacy. If people grow used to monitoring the dashboard, they may want to know what other details Google keeps on them through search and cookies, and wish to see and control those too.
Tags: dashboard, google, google dashboard, privacy, search engine, streetview
David Gelles, Joseph Menn, Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters in the FT's San Francisco bureau upload their views - plus tech insights from writers in New York, London and Tokyo
Richard Waters
Chris Nuttall
David Gelles
Maija Palmer
Joseph Menn
Robin Kwong
Tim Bradshaw
The latest gadgets and gizmos, reviewed by Jonathan Margolis in How To Spend It.
Paul Taylor, the FT’s personal technology expert, answers your gadgetry questions