Should You Use Google Differently Now That It Has a New Privacy Policy?

NEW YORK (MainStreet) – Most people tend to ignore terms of service agreements and privacy policies, but when Google announced sweeping changes to its privacy policies in January, it got a lot of people’s attention due to the company’s immense popularity. Google itself made a big effort to raise awareness, running an ad campaign and alerting users of its various services with the admonition, “this stuff is important.” And privacy advocates advised users to delete their personal information from Google before the day the new privacy policy took effect.

That day is now here, and chances are you aren’t noticing any big difference in your Google experience.

For all the hoopla, the only real visible impact of the new policy is more targeted advertising across Google’s various products, from Gmail to Google search to Google+. The company has always tailored ads to its users in various ways – for instance, if you send a lot of emails about hunting, expect to see ads on Gmail for gun shops and other hunting equipment, for instance. The new policy simply unifies all the myriad services under one banner, which means that sending emails about hunting might make gun ads appear on Google+ as well, while searching for tennis rackets on Google might make ads for tennis gear show up on Gmail.

Basically, Google is just getting a lot better at what it has always been good at: creating laser-focused advertising based on the personal information it has gathered on you. Other than that, there won’t be any appreciable change in your user experience, nor do you need to do anything differently on Google Search, YouTube, Gmail or any of the other services.

Unless, of course, this whole thing creeps you out. Then you can take advantage of Google’s easy-to-use privacy settings to opt out of tracking. You’ll still get ads, but they’ll no longer be tailored to your personal preferences, so if you’re a hunter, you’re no more likely to get ads for guns than you are to get ads for bath products. You can also opt out of seeing personalized ads on other websites that use Google Display Network.

But what about all that information that Google has gathered on you in the years you spent using Gmail and other free services? Despite all the talk about deleting that stuff before the privacy policy took effect, you still have the option of editing your ad preferences, clearing your Web and search history and tinkering with any of the other privacy controls offered by Google.

Matt Brownell is a staff reporter for MainStreet. You can reach him by email at matthew.brownell@thestreet.com, or follow him on Twitter @Brownellorama.