On January 28 Google celebrated Data Privacy Day (or known as Data Protection Day). To celebrate, Google decided to publish its Privacy Principles.
Google has five Privacy Principles and considers them important enough to capitalize the overarching term. The official explanation stated, “Our Privacy Principles help guide decisions we make at every level of our company, so we can help protect and empower our users while we fulfill our ongoing mission to organize the world’s information.”
The five principles are as follows:
1. Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
2. Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
3. Make the collection of personal information transparent.
4. Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
5. Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.
It’s best to know that these Principles aren’t new. All Google did was make some longstanding guidelines public. On the Google’s official blog, it referred to “privacy-enhancing initiatives and features” this morning and promised, “[T]here is more in store for 2010.”