Privacy Digest

Google Changes Home Page, Adding Link to Privacy Policy - Via Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog:

The word “privacy” now appears on Google’s home page, with a link to the company’s privacy policy.

With that one word, the Web search giant heads off the growing controversy over whether its previous practice ran afoul of a California law, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which requires the operator of a commercial Web site that collects personal information to link to its privacy policy from its home page.

When I wrote in May that Google appears to be violating the law, Google told me that it did not believe that it was required to put a link on its home page. The company said that its privacy policy was easy enough to find, either on the page called “About Google” or by searching for “Google privacy policy” on its search engine.

Later, I spoke to Joanne McNabb, the chief of California’s Office of Privacy Protection, who said that her agency believes that Google should have a link to its privacy policy on its home page. After the issue buzzed about the blogosphere, four privacy groups wrote Google urging it to change its practices.

Google announced its change of heart on both its main corporate blog and on its public policy blog. (It may be a coincidence, but the changes were made late on July 3, the day before a three-day weekend. Was that perhaps to avoid much notice?)

Both posts said, “We added this link both to our homepage and to our results page to make it easier for users to find information about our privacy principles.” Neither post mentioned the California law.

(Read Original Article - Via Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog.)