Google Sets Record Straight for Those 'Outraged' by the New Privacy Policy

Google finds itself having to explain its privacy policy changes, mostly to people who haven't bothered to read either the old privacy policies, all 70 of them, or the new one, but are shocked and outraged nonetheless.

Several US Congress members, some with a long record of grandstanding, have all taken issue to the changes and have even sent a letter to Larry Page demanding answers.

Answers that are already available in the actual policy text. Politicians have far too much on their plate to actually read documents though, SOPA and PIPA still need to be pushed through somehow.

"Google's new privacy policy should enable consumers to opt-out if they don’t want their use of YouTube to morph into YouTrack," US Congress man Edward Markey cleverly writes.

That's not true, of course, nothing is morphing into anything, YouTube already tracked usage, nothing has changed. What's more, you can use YouTube without being logged in.

Google has responded to all the outcry by making it more obvious that nothing changes. Google is not doing anything it hasn't been doing so far, it's just making it more obvious to users and simpler for them to be informed.

"We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google — whichever products or services you use. This is something we have already been doing for a long time," Betsy Masiello, policy manager at Google, wrote.

Others criticized that Google is not giving users the 'option' of not agreeing to the new privacy policy. But there is always an option, stop using Google. Granted, that's not something most people are able or willing to do.

But those that do care about their privacy can use most Google services and still be a lot more private than if they used Facebook for example. A Google account only requires a minimal amount of information to be provided.

Users can disable search history, can opt-out of targeted advertising, can delete a lot of data that Google may already have on them and can use many Google services without having to be logged in.

"You don’t need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube. If you are logged in, you can still edit or turn off your Search history, switch Gmail chat to 'off the record,' control the way Google tailors ads to your interests, use Incognito mode on Chrome, or use any of the other privacy tools we offer," Google explained.