At the Google Privacy Center they have recently posted a highlighted entry about their privacy policies that indicates a significant shift is coming as it relates to Google, its products and privacy:
We are updating our privacy policies to make them more user-friendly and to better reflect how our products work together. Find out more details about the updates and read the new policy. The updated policy will take effect on October 3, 2010.
Instead of a separate policy for each of its products there is now one page of privacy policy and it applies to all the products, services and websites provided by Google. They do indicate they may provide more in depth information about a product and how it uses the information you provide but the general policy applies across the board.
You have to imagine that this change to a clearer policy without all the legalese is in response to lessons they have learned watching Facebook go through their privacy issues over the last several months.
I say this is a good thing and I hope it starts a trend of companies simplifying their privacy policies to fully protect their customers data and keep it all out in the open how it will be handled.
What do you think – Good, Bad or Indifferent?