At a European privacy conference in Spain Thursday, the company unveiled a new service called Google Dashboard that summarizes the data that Google collects in users’ accounts for products like Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, Web History, Checkout, Reader and YouTube. Users will be able to adjust their privacy settings for the various Google products directly from the dashboard.
Much of the information was previously available in the accounts and settings sections for each product, so Dashboard simply brings all that information together in one place.
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[Our emphasis] Dashboard provides information only about users’ Google accounts for products that require users to log in or products where the log-in is optional. It does not address the search records of people who are not logged into Google or the cookie data that Google uses to aim ads at people. Many advocates say that the collection and storage of such data may raise the biggest privacy concerns.
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Still, privacy advocates hailed the product.
“It is a significant step forward in terms of trying to unite the user experience for people who use Google products,” said Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an independent advocacy group that receives some funding from Google and other technology companies. “We still need a lot more to protect consumers’ privacy."
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