Prompt's TechBlog
Google announcement: More PR than Privacy
17 July 2007
Posted by Sean McManus
The BBC reports that Google has dramatically shortened the life the cookies it issues, from 31 years to 2 years.
Cookies are small text files that websites can put on a user's computer so the user can be identified when he or she looks at different pages on the site or returns to the site later. It's what makes it possible to visit Amazon on different days to tinker with your wishlist without having to log in again, and what enables you to pop in and out of ebay all Saturday without repeatedly logging in to bid.
Privacy advocates have been concerned about how long Google tracks people for, and the data it holds. If you want a mild fright, try logging in to Google and viewing your web history. Unless you've specifically opted out, Google will have kept a record of everything you've searched for and all the sites you've visited while logged in to your Google account.
The cookie potentially enables Google to track your activity across websites that host Google adverts or use Google for visitor tracking, which represents a lot of the internet.
So Google's representing this cut of 31 years in the cookie life as a big deal. But it's not really because if you use a Google service, the counter is reset. The cookie only ever expires if you don't use Google Search, Blogger, Gmail, Adwords, Adsense, Reader or any other Google service for two whole years. And if you have a one-off engagement with Google, it'll reserve the right to track you for two whole years afterwards.
Google says it wants to stop people from having to log in all the time, but most people would consider once a month or once a week to be reasonable. Indeed, ebay users must provide their password once a day.
This announcement appears to do a lot more to improve Google's public relations profile than it does to actually change how it uses personal data.
Cookies are small text files that websites can put on a user's computer so the user can be identified when he or she looks at different pages on the site or returns to the site later. It's what makes it possible to visit Amazon on different days to tinker with your wishlist without having to log in again, and what enables you to pop in and out of ebay all Saturday without repeatedly logging in to bid.
Privacy advocates have been concerned about how long Google tracks people for, and the data it holds. If you want a mild fright, try logging in to Google and viewing your web history. Unless you've specifically opted out, Google will have kept a record of everything you've searched for and all the sites you've visited while logged in to your Google account.
The cookie potentially enables Google to track your activity across websites that host Google adverts or use Google for visitor tracking, which represents a lot of the internet.
So Google's representing this cut of 31 years in the cookie life as a big deal. But it's not really because if you use a Google service, the counter is reset. The cookie only ever expires if you don't use Google Search, Blogger, Gmail, Adwords, Adsense, Reader or any other Google service for two whole years. And if you have a one-off engagement with Google, it'll reserve the right to track you for two whole years afterwards.
Google says it wants to stop people from having to log in all the time, but most people would consider once a month or once a week to be reasonable. Indeed, ebay users must provide their password once a day.
This announcement appears to do a lot more to improve Google's public relations profile than it does to actually change how it uses personal data.
# posted by Sean McManus at 11:28 AM 
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