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Last modified: October 3, 2010 (view
archived versions)
This Privacy Policy applies to all of the
products, services and websites
offered by Google Inc. or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies except
Postini (Postini
Privacy Policy). Sometimes, we may post product specific privacy notices or
Help Center materials to explain our products in more detail.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to
contact us through our website or write to us at
Privacy Matters
c/o Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California, 94043
USA
We may collect the following types of information:
- Information you provide – When you sign up for a
Google Account, we ask you for
personal information. We may combine the information you submit under
your account with information from other Google services or third parties in
order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of
our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt
out of combining such information. You can use the Google Dashboard to learn
more about the information associated with your Account. If you are using
Google services in conjunction with your Google Apps Account, Google
provides such services in conjunction with or on behalf of
your
domain administrator. Your administrator will have access to your
account information including your email. Consult your domain
administrator’s privacy policy for more information.
- Cookies – When you visit Google, we send one or more
cookies to your computer or other device. We use cookies to improve the
quality of our service, including for storing user preferences, improving
search results and ad selection, and tracking user trends, such as how
people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help
advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web and on Google
services.
- Log information – When you access Google services via a
browser, application or other client our servers automatically record
certain information. These
server logs may include information such as your web request, your
interaction with a service, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser
language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may
uniquely identify your browser or your account.
- User communications – When you send email or other
communications to Google, we may retain those communications in order to
process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services.
When you send and receive SMS messages to or from one of our services that
provides SMS functionality, we may collect and maintain information
associated with those messages, such as the phone number, the wireless
carrier associated with the phone number, the content of the message, and
the date and time of the transaction. We may use your email address to
communicate with you about our services.
- Affiliated Google Services on other sites – We offer
some of our services on or through other web sites. Personal information
that you provide to those sites may be sent to Google in order to deliver
the service. We process such information under this Privacy Policy.
- Third Party Applications – Google may make available
third party applications, such as gadgets or extensions, through its
services. The information collected by Google when you enable a third party
application is processed under this Privacy Policy. Information collected by
the third party application provider is governed by their privacy policies.
- Location data – Google offers location-enabled
services, such as Google Maps and Latitude. If you use those services,
Google may receive information about your actual location (such as GPS
signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to
approximate a location (such as a cell ID).
- Unique application number – Certain services, such as
Google Toolbar, include a unique application number that is not associated
with your account or you. This number and information about your
installation (e.g., operating system type, version number) may be sent to
Google when you install or uninstall that service or when that service
periodically contacts our servers (for example, to request automatic updates
to the software).
- Other sites – This Privacy Policy applies to Google
services only. We do not exercise control over the sites displayed as search
results, sites that include Google applications, products or services, or
links from within our various services. These other sites may place their
own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit
personal information from you.
In addition to the above, we may use the information we collect to:
- Provide, maintain, protect, and improve our services (including
advertising services) and develop new services; and
- Protect the rights or property of Google or our users.
If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which
it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.
Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of
America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information
outside your own country.
Choices
You can use the Google
Dashboard to review and control the information stored in your Google
Account.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your
browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
However, some Google features and services may not function properly if your
cookies are disabled.
Google uses the DoubleClick
advertising cookie on AdSense partner sites and certain Google services to
help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web. You can
view and manage your ads preferences associated with this cookie by accessing
the Ads Preferences
Manager. In addition, you may choose to opt out of the DoubleClick cookie at
any time by using
DoubleClick’s opt-out cookie.
Information sharing
Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals
outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:
- We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any
sensitive personal information.
- We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or
other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal
information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process
such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this
Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security
measures.
- We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure
of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable
law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b)
enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential
violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud,
security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights,
property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or
permitted by law.
If Google becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of
some or all of its assets, we will ensure the confidentiality of any personal
information involved in such transactions and provide notice before personal
information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
Information security
We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access
to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include
internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and
security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security
measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal
data.
We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors
and agents who need to know that information in order to process it on our
behalf. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be
subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they
fail to meet these obligations.
Accessing and updating personal information
When you use Google services, we make good faith efforts to provide you with
access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is
inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise
required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. We ask
individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be
accessed, corrected or removed before processing such requests, and we may
decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic,
require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or
would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information
residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not otherwise required. In any
case where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service
free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort.
Because of the way we maintain certain services, after you delete your
information, residual copies may take a period of time before they are deleted
from our active servers and may remain in our backup systems. Please review the
service Help Centers for more information.
Enforcement
Google adheres to the US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of Notice, Choice,
Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access and Enforcement, and is
registered with the
U.S. Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Program.
Google regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. When we
receive formal written complaints, it is Google’s policy to contact the
complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the
appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities,
to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be
resolved between Google and an individual.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will
not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent.
We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are
significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain
services, email notification of Privacy Policy changes). We will also keep
prior versions of
this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.
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