As of March 1, 2011, you will be required to accept Google's new Terms of Service, and if you refuse, you will not be allowed to use any of Google's products or apps.
For quite some time, Google has been collecting data about your online habits including websites you visit, how long you stay there, how many pages you read, what you read, the links you navigate to from any given website, and other similar sites you visit.
Google has also been collecting data about you from your Google Gmail account, YouTube account, as well as Google Webmaster, Analytics, document sharing accounts, and even from your own computer and mobile devices. In fact, with few exceptions, for any Google product or account you have been using, Google has been collecting data about you - right down to the browser you use, the device you use (PC, Mac, or mobile device), and where you are located.
Most recently, Google has been collecting social networking data about the people you are connected to through Google+. Your connections viewing habits, what they are talking about and sharing, will now be considered as information about you as well and factored in as things you might also be interested in.
What Is Google Going To Do With Data About Me?
The new Terms of Service (TOS) require you to agree to let Google use all the information they have already collected about you (and will continue to collect in the future) for marketing purposes under the auspice that your information will be used to deliver better search engine results to you.
Sure.
The real truth is that the information is not intended to benefit you with better search engine results, it is intended to be used to target you with ads, sponsor links, and "opportunities." It also means you will be more likely to see websites using Pay-Per-Click to attract visitors than true organic results.
The bottom line is Google has "gone business." They are sitting on a gold mine of marketing information, and even if they do not directly pass this information alone on to other third-party companies, they will still use information gleaned from your accounts to peg you as a particular type of consumer to target you with their own client's ads.
Here is an example:
Supposed that Google has collected data that you like jazz music from past searches you ran, what you watch on YouTube, and perhaps even from apps (like Pandora) on your mobile device. If you are signed into any Google account while running searches or visiting YouTube, and you Google "music" your results will most likely offer jazz related music. It also means that sponsored ads you see in search results will reflect the things you like - or, the things that Google thinks you like.
Businesses who pay Google to shove them higher in results relating to jazz will appear first. These sites may not even show up as "sponsor" links but could be disguised in other ways. The unbiased, level playing field of competing for organic searches is gone to the highest bidder.
Sounds Like TV Commercials Based On The Show You Are Watching. Why Is This Such A Bad Idea?
It is not the same thing at all as marketers targeting TV audiences because television producers are not pulling data off your home computer.
I research a wide variety of legal issues for my clients. I write content, build websites, answer legal questions. When I am researching legal strategies for criminal defense law I run a lot of searches (especially in Google Scholar) for cases, news, and laws relating to everything from drunk drivers, to illegal drugs, to sex crimes to murder. Google now apparently thinks I drive while intoxicated, am a juvenile offender using drugs, and in search of a lawyer because I am a felon (based on the subjects I Google.)
Like many families, we have a central family computer. If I have forgotten to log out of my YouTube account, my kids searches now become part of the database about me. Apparently, I also like Nickleback and Lady Gaga now.
Google+ is another way search data will be skewed - I build social networks for attorneys and business professionals. A lot of what I do for them is done from one computer and accounts are connected to a master account for monitoring (accounts that Google has access to.) Now Google thinks I am into sports medicine, charities in Africa, and everything my family and friends are talking about right down to politics. It does not occur to Google that just because my friends believe one thing I may not agreed with them or that their hot topics are not related to my interests.
The biggest problem is that Google's tools are automated and decisions about who I am and what I like are based on raw data that is not filtered. It is not that I care Google collects this data (they always have) as much as that I am now basically required to admit that they know what I want in a search engine results better than I do. This means things I might really be interested in are less likely to be offered to me objectively in search results - websites I may like I will know never know even exist.
