– Wow, Google Home, does it store everything I say ?! Journalist Sagal Guleid looks in disbelief at the screen in front of him. Together with colleague Jan Dydland in news Ung, she takes Google’s privacy check, which will help you get an overview of what you share information and not. Several of Google’s smart speakers record the sound of you when you talk to them. This can be useful – if you need to ask about the weather or directions. It only takes one more click to approve that Google saves recordings of your voice. Not everyone is conscious of turning this off again. The same goes for a good deal of other information Google stores about us online, such as where we have stayed, words we search for and what we like on social media. Guleid and Dydland have also noticed this. – Have you experienced talking about something that later appears as a Google ad? – Yes, all the time. Orange juice, bicycle, clothes and shoes. It’s completely sick, says Guleid. Sagal Guleid (left) is surprised at how much information Google stores, but does not think it is just negative. Photo: Ine Julia Rojahn Schwebs / news – Or just a conversation with a friend about going somewhere, and suddenly the place appears on Google, Dydland adds. Google wants to help Google and other players use the information they collect about us to show us, for example, the ad they calculate that we are most likely to click on. This is how they make big money. So far this year, Google has earned over $ 536 billion on advertising. Have you experienced talking about something that you get publicized about later? YES! ? No, I’m good at my privacy ? Show result Knowing how to protect personal information online is not always easy. It now also admits Google. In a recent survey, the technology giant shows that almost half of Norwegians find it difficult to take control of what is shared online. That so many Norwegians are unsure of how to proceed is something Google now says they want to do something about. – We want to make it clear that it is very easy to take control of the data by clicking on your Google account and taking the privacy check which takes you about five minutes to complete. That’s what Tine Austvoll Jensen, who is head of Google Norway, says. This shows Google’s survey 9 out of 10 Norwegians are concerned about their privacy online Nearly half (47 percent) think they have no opportunity to influence what is collected from data 40 percent have not taken action to influence what information Google has about 60 percent of them have taken action to limit the information – Confusing But while Google now asks us to check our privacy settings, they have complained to the Data Inspectorate in Norway and several other countries. They believe Google does not make it easy enough to protect itself online. Is it really as easy to protect yourself as Google wants it to be? According to technology director Simen Sommerfeldt in Bouvet, the privacy check is not as straight forward as one might think. – I think the privacy check is a bit confusing. I do not get a good overview of what I share when I enter. Technology Director Simen Sommerfeldt says it’s almost impossible to protect against all online tracking – even after turning off all sharing using Google’s privacy check. Photo: Ine Julia Rojahn Schwebs / news The Privacy Ordinance says it should be easy for users to understand what information digital players store about us, and what it is used for. That is, it should be as easy to turn off data sharing as it is to turn it on. And those who are responsible for ensuring that our information is well taken care of are not actually us. It is the actors who collect the information about us. – The way they use the information should not come as a surprise to us, Sommerfeldt says. Impossible to protect yourself completely And even if you were to do everything “correctly” by turning off all tracking in the privacy check, there is probably no guarantee that you will still not be tracked. – It is almost impossible to protect oneself, says Sommerfeldt. It was the Consumer Council that submitted the complaint to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority earlier this summer. In the complaint, they mention, among other things, that it is easier to turn off the use of personal information than it is to turn it off. The Consumer Council believes that Google deliberately uses a misleading design, which in English is called “dark patterns”. The Consumer Council believes this is illegal. Finn Myrstad in the Consumer Council has been involved in drafting the Google complaint that has been submitted to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority. The main accusation is that Google makes it more difficult than necessary for us to have an overview of what data we share. Photo: The Consumer Council – It gives you an illusion of control because it gives the impression that Google takes your privacy seriously, says Finn Myrstad, who is the director of digital services in the Consumer Council. He is also not impressed with Google’s privacy check. – It does not allow you to easily turn off the very extensive tracking that Google does every single day. Confident in the design Austvoll Jensen in Google Norway still maintains that their current model is good enough. – We work with both researchers and user groups, and are confident that our design is easy to understand, she says. And even though the complaint has not yet been processed by the Data Inspectorate, Myrstad receives support from the Data Inspectorate’s Tobias Judin. He is responsible for matters concerning the transfer of personal data to other countries. – If you are interested in meeting people on what they really think about this here, then you would have given them a simple button where you could say no to everything with one click. – But they do not want to give people that opportunity, because then they lose money, Judin says. There is only one reason why Google does not create a single button to turn off all data sharing, says Tobias Judin in the Data Inspectorate: – It is because they do not want it. Photo: Ilja C. Hendel / Ilja C. Hendel In a survey conducted by the Consumer Council last year, 9 out of 10 Norwegians said that they did not want commercial actors to collect information about them online. Privacy as an excuse? Judin believes that Google now wants to appear more privacy-friendly, so that even more people use their services. Already, 70 percent of the world’s population use Google Chrome as a browser. – We are a little concerned that Google uses privacy as an excuse to exclude other players and give itself a monopoly. – What does it mean? – If Google gets a monopoly, it means that they can become even more dominant. They can decide for themselves what they want the internet to look like, and then there may not be many who get to challenge them. Google now wants to pay more attention to privacy protection and now encourages everyone to go into their account to check what data they are sharing. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB However, the Google manager does not agree. She points out that the company has been working for several years to make the internet “more privacy-friendly”. If we are to have hope of finding new, privacy-friendly industry standards, we have to work together on a solution that can be accepted by everyone involved. It never happens if we dictate the way forward alone. An earlier version of this article stated that Google stores recordings of your voice unless you actively seek to change it. This is not true. The article was changed on 12.07.22 at 20.57.
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Google asks you to check privacy – news Kultur og underholdning
