Google Talk Privacy Notice

Updated as of July 14, 2009

The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google services, including information provided when you use Google Talk. In addition, the following describes privacy practices specific to Google Talk.

• Account activity. You need a Google Account to access Google Talk. Google asks for some personal information when you create a Google Account, including your email address and a password, which is used to protect your account from unauthorized access. A Google Account allows you to access many of our services that require registration.
  When you use Google Talk, we may record information about your usage, such as when you use Google Talk, the size of your contact list and the contacts you communicate with, and the frequency and size of data transfers. Information displayed or clicked on in the Google Talk interface (including UI elements, settings, and other information) is also recorded.
• Content. You may choose to store the contents of text chats as Gmail messages in your Gmail account. (See "Your choices," below, for more information.)
• SMS. When you send and receive SMS messages to or from Google Talk, we 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 use this information internally to deliver the best possible service to you, such as improving the Google Talk user interface and maintaining a consistent and reliable user experience.
• On a regular basis, we delete activity information associated with your account.
• When you use Google Talk, people included in your contact list may be able to see your online presence, username, Gmail address, and any information that you choose to add to your profile, including images, links, and custom status indicators.
• We may relay content for users in some cases.

• You can change your Google Talk account settings at any time in the "Settings" section of Google Talk. You may, for example, modify your online presence status or block particular users through the user interface. For more information about contact lists and online presence, please visit the Google Talk Help Center.
• You can choose whether to store text chats in your Gmail account. During a particular chat, you can go off the record with your conversation. This means that you can prevent the person you are chatting with from automatically storing the chat as a message in his or her Gmail account. This feature does not prevent that person from copying and pasting text chats or otherwise manually recording them. Also, the feature is available only if both you and the other person are using the Google Talk client, Google Talk in Gmail, or a third-party client that enables this feature.
• You can uninstall the Google Talk software at any time through your computer operating system's uninstall process. You may delete your contacts information or chat histories you have stored in your Gmail account by deleting them through Gmail or by deleting your Gmail account from the Google Accounts page. Because of the way we maintain this service, such deletion may not be immediate, and residual copies may remain on backup media.

Google adheres to the US Safe Harbor privacy principles. For more information about the Safe Harbor framework or our registration, see the Department of Commerce's web site.

For questions concerning the product or your account, please check out the Google Help page.