Google Privacy Update
Now that I think of it, links in this post might actually be confusing this topic. I do not know the complete story about Google-Orkut-Indian Police’s saga of demand and submit, so I will not comment further on it. If I read Google’s announcement yesterday correctly, it seems to be saying:
We are painfully realizing that retaining data indefinitely, according to our previous plans, is a double edged sword. The outer edge (Governments, Unions, et al) is hurting us more while trying to satisfy the inner (technology, research, statistics, user behaviours, data for studying needles in haystack) that’s facing us.
We, therefore, will not retain (user identifiable) data any longer than that is needed for our parametric studies. To governments and bodies that demand our users’ data, we politely request them to go to hell. We don’t have it anymore.
To me, this is a really smart move from Google, and an extremely good one. It actually does try to keep things private, no profiles attached. And one that thwarts all perverts from trying to armtwist Google into submitting data. So, the next time someone demands for it, Google will just smile and point to this URL.