The world is becoming an interesting place to live. Today, your  personal data is as valuable as your physical property. Online asset is something new businesses are targeting at, for example :  Millions of email Ids and also Twitter Ids can be bought in the market for a reasonable price. Every marketing campaigns aim to get your personal information and employ target marketing, this is why your personal information has become a thing to be protected . There are no other companies like Google and Facebook which have continuingly been alleged of privacy violation. Right now with 350 Million users, Facebook must be having details of each individuals which it can trade anytime. Google with its highest reach to the people can anytime transact your web history to sell you advertisement and products. But what stops them from doing so is the ethic of online privacy.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) works to prevent the violation of any personal rights to privacy. The organization has always closely watched the behavioral targeting technology. There are many theoretical arguments which tries to prove that behavioral targeting method violates personal privacy and should not be employed. But in the age of information, this has become the key method to target consumers. Hence EPIC works to prevent any exploitation of public data.

Google is one of the leading company which continuously tracks your personal data to bring better search result. Today’s web engines and applications are intelligent enough to know who you are and what your preferences are. Google’s personalization of search result is one of the way by which Google can effectively provide you with the results that you are looking for. Google attains this by storing your search keywords history and clicks and recording your preferences. The feature is optional and can be removed any time you want. The feature is only for users who have logged in through their Gmail ID. Therefore, the search result will not be optimized if the user is not logged in. This puts Google on a safe side.

But on December 4^th, Google announced a tracking features which will allow even the logged out user to experience the search customizations. Unlike your web history which stores data through your logged in ID, the news opt-out feature will track any anonymous behavior and store in its dedicated cookies for up to 180 days, after which it will be cleared. Further, you see the data but can delete them permanently. Though Google mentions that the feature is useful to optimize and bring better search result, EPIC have raised its eye brows over the new changes.

“The key point is that Google is now tracking users of search who have specifically chosen not to log in to a Google account,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “They are obliterating one of the few remaining privacy safeguards for Google services.”

Source : NYTimes

And this is what Google has to say about it.

“All the major search engines have long recorded what you search on. Google’s simply using it to refine your results,” Mr. Sullivan wrote.

Source : NYTimes

Is your privacy really being affected by the new policy or are we over reacting over the issue? It may be a harmless feature which works in a similar way as your Web History and the fact the you can delete them and disable them, it makes no sense to blame Google. Further, in today’s age, the information you provide the better opportunity you are likely to receive through Internet. But what users need to understand is that they should be careful enough to know the limitations of your control over the Internet and play safe with your data.

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