Google Accused of 'Posing' on Privacy

'You heard the headline, surely. Google is giving you privacy. Lots of privacy. Privacy here, there and everywhere. You're free. Rejoice. Leap in the air,' writes Inc. columnist Chris Matyszczyk -- arguing that there's one huge and painful catch:

Google needs to know everything about you because, as my colleague Bill Murphy Jr. reported, it's after as much of the advertising industry as it can swallow whole. However, Google also needs to look as if it's doing something about privacy, because privacy is the new big thing. Everyone's talking about it and Google is finding itself the subject of more and more lawsuits, as it emerges that the company keeps on tracking you whether you want it to or not.

So what has Google really done with this privacy effort? Yes, it's introduced more privacy and security controls which, in the latest version of Android, might even amount to 50 elements for you to toggle away at. And that is the wicked psychological point. Google is posing to regulators by doing this. It's also putting it entirely in users' hands to work out how all these controls work and what they all mean.

Because it knows the vast majority of users just don't and won't do it.

The column argues that Google 'is inviting people to be full-time monitors of what Google may or may not be spying on' -- while at the same time 'making sure this is far too much work.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.