Does Google Care About Privacy and Trust?

May 30th, 2008

A simple motto “Do no Evil” combined with an almost essential and useful service, have served Google well, shielding them from consumer scrutiny regarding data collection. But as Google matures, collects more information on more users and expands into privacy sensitive areas such as personal health records, it is inevitable that they draw fire regarding their lagging privacy commitment.

On today’s New York Times Bits Blog, Saul Hansell points out something that internet privacy experts have known for a long time, Google is not meeting a basic internet best practice for websites that care about consumer trust. In TRUSTe and Ponemon Institute Most Trusted Survey and Website Criteria reviews in 2007, although Google scored in the Top 10 among consumers for privacy, they fell short on key criteria privacy experts agree are best practices. One of those practices is linking the privacy statement from the homepage.  Out of the top 12 search engines only Google and Ask do not link to their privacy statement from the homepage. If Google applied today for the TRUSTe privacy seal of approval, we would require them to post a link on their homepage.   All TRUSTe certified search engines AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and Lycos follow this practice.

Being trustworthy is not just about making privacy information and rights easily accessible, it is also about being responsive to consumers when it comes to the valuable and exhaustive information they are collecting via search or other internet services.  In the “secret shopping” questions TRUSTe and the Ponemon Institute conducted during our Most Trusted Company research, Google was one of only seven companies that did not respond at all to privacy related customer service inquiries.

As one of the most pervasive collectors of internet data and information of all types, Google should step up to meet best practices as have the 1500 companies who proudly display the TRUSTe seal. 

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