Bowing to pressure from privacy campaigners and especially the objection on violation of California law — Google added a link to its privacy policy, though without cluttering up its famously sparse home page.
Last month, privacy organizations, in a letter sent to Google CEO Eric Schmidt asked the company to add a link to its privacy policy from its home page. Including the link on the home page is good practice — and also mandated by California law, the organizations said.
On Thursday, in a move to pacify privacy groups — and perhaps to conform to California law — Google has acceded to the request, putting the word “Privacy” right on its home page. The link replaces the word “Google” in what used to be small line dedicated to a copyright statement, so the total number of words on Google’s famously Spartan home page leaving the number of word count unchanged.
“Google it appears that decided to keep it clean, in more ways than one.”
The search giant had recently come under criticism over its rejection to incorporate a link to its privacy policy on Google.com, from groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the ACLU, who argued finding Google’s privacy policy amid the maze of its online offerings and services was difficult, and more than a matter of a couple clicks from the home page.
Some privacy advocates asserted that the absence of a link to the company’s privacy policy from its home page might violate California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003.
The company said then that it did not think the link was necessary because its privacy policy was “readily accessible” to those looking for it. It could be found, among other places, on its’ “About” page, which was linked to from Google.com.
Google had earlier refused to make the change to its home page, saying that users appreciate the lack of clutter there. Microsoft and Yahoo both include privacy links on their search pages, while Ask.com added a link to its privacy policy on June 18.
The order to remove the company’s name to make way for the privacy link came right from the company’s founders, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer explained in a posting to the company’s blog.
According to Mayer at the Google Blog, “Larry and Sergey told me we could only add this to the homepage if we took a word away — keeping the “weight” of the homepage unchanged at 28. Given that the new Privacy link fit best with legal disclaimers on the page, I looked to the copyright line. There, we dropped the word “Google” (realizing it was implied, obviously) and added the new privacy link alongside it.”
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Saturday that his group is “pleased” with the decision.
“This was not only required by California law (and Google is a California corporation) but is also the standard practice for commercial Web sites,” he said in an e-mail.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center had joined with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the World Privacy Forum in leading the effort to press Google to make the change.
Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, also welcomed Google’s decision.
“Although privacy policies are not a guarantee of perfect privacy practices, they are still an important tool for consumers,” she said Saturday in an e-mail. Dixon added that such links are “something consumers have come to expect, and rightly so given that it is a standard practice.”
Mayer also explained:
Google values our users’ privacy first and foremost. Trust is the basis of everything we do, so we want you to be familiar and comfortable with the integrity and care we give your personal data. We added this link both to our homepage and to our results page to make it easier for you to find information about our privacy principles. The new “Privacy” link goes to our Privacy Center, which was revamped earlier this year to be more straightforward and approachable, with videos and a non-legalese overview to make sure you understand in basic terms what Google does, does not, will, and would not, do in regard to your personal information.
Google competitors Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com, by the way, all provide links to their privacy policies on their home pages.