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    Google (Quietly/Oddly) Adds Privacy Link to Homepage

    Posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    After coming under attack for refusing to add a simple hyperlink to help users find their privacy policy, Google has added the word “privacy”, with a link to its privacy policy, to its home page (image via Google):

    Google privacy before/after

    Google, for whatever reason, isn’t directly acknowledging that there was public pressure to take this simple step. The announcement on Google’s public policy blog frames it in a self-congratulatory manner, noting how it’s putting “users’ privacy first and foremost” and strengthening user trust, etc, etc. And their main blog relates some odd story by Marissa Mayer about the history of measuring the number of words on Google’s homepage, and makes it sound like they had to make some great sacrifice to add the word “privacy” without violating the feng shui of the homepage. The word privacy doesn’t even appear in the title, so most causal readers won’t even know that’s what is being announced.

    I’m thrilled Google has found the wisdom to add these 7 letters and a bit of HTML code to link to its privacy policy. I just wish they could be a bit more forthright in why it is important and why they’ve suddenly decided to make the change.

    Posted in Google, Privacy, Search privacy

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    One Response to “Google (Quietly/Oddly) Adds Privacy Link to Homepage”

    1. Robert Says:
      July 8th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

      Curious that ability to comment is not allowed on MM’s blog post, surely to prevent the predictable criticism as to why to start off with lame title “What comes next in this series…” Later that evening, Pablo found it necessary to clearly state in the title of a follow-up post, “A Privacy Link on Google.com,” which allows comments, by the way.

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