This Privacy Policy will be effective March 1, 2012, and will replace the existing Privacy Policy. Please see our overview page for additional details.
At Google, we are keenly aware of the trust our users place in us, and our responsibility to protect their privacy. We believe transparency and choice are the foundations of privacy. To help you make informed decisions about your own privacy, we work to let you know what information we collect when you use our products and services and how we use that information to improve your service. We also work to give you meaningful choices when possible about the information you provide to Google and to others. We encourage you to watch our videos, read our privacy policy and consult our Help Centers to find out more about privacy at Google.
We store this data for a number of reasons. Most importantly, we store data to improve our search results and to maintain the security of our systems. Analyzing logs data helps our engineers both improve your search quality and build helpful innovative services. Take the example of Google Spell Checker. Google’s spell checking software automatically looks at a user’s query and checks to see if that user is using the most common version of the word’s spelling. If we calculate a user is likely to get more relevant search results with an alternative spelling, we’ll ask “Did you mean: (more common spelling)?” In order to provide this service, we study the data in our logs. Logs data also helps us improve our search results. If we know that users are clicking on the #1 result, we know we’re probably doing something right, and if they’re hitting next page or reformulating their query, we’re probably doing something wrong. In addition, logs data helps us prevent against fraud and other abuses, like phishing, scripting attacks, and spam, including query click spam and ads click spam.
We strike a reasonable balance between the competing pressures we face, such as the privacy of our users, the security of our systems and the need for innovation. We believe anonymizing IP addresses after 9 months and cookies in our search engine logs after 18 months strikes the right balance.
Like all search engines, Google is a reflection of the content and information publicly available on the web. Search engines do not have the ability to remove content directly from the web, so removing search results from Google or another search engine leaves the underlying content unaffected. If you want to remove something from the web, you should contact the webmaster of the site and ask him or her to make a change. Once the content has been removed and Google’s search engine crawl has visited the page again, the information will no longer appear in Google’s search results. If you have an urgent removal request, you can also visit our help page for more information.
Yes, like most websites and search engines, Google uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising. Cookies help us keep a record of your preferences, like whether you want your search results in English or French, or if you use our SafeSearch filter. Without cookies, Google wouldn’t be able to remember what different people like. We also use cookies to provide advertising more relevant to your interests.
We’ve been told most users don’t want to re-set their computers every time they log on. If you don’t want to receive cookies you can change your browsers to notify you when cookies are sent and then refuse cookies from certain websites (or altogether). You can also delete cookies from your browser. Google’s search engine does work without cookies, but you will lose some functionality if you choose to disable cookies.
Many countries approach privacy issues differently and there is no consistent global standard on which all countries agree. Google’s privacy policy is designed to be a single, clear, global statement of our approach to privacy, and our privacy practices under it are designed to meet applicable law around the world.
Like other technology and communications companies, we receive requests from government agencies around the world to provide information about users of our services and products. To help increase transparency about these requests we have created the Government Requests Tool, which shows the number of requests that we have received that relate primarily to criminal investigations. For more information about the tool and the nature of these requests, please check the Government Requests Tool FAQ.
You can contact us any time through our privacy contact form. If you prefer, you can also write to:
Privacy MattersThis is information which you provide to us which personally identifies you, such as your name, email address or billing information, or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information by Google.
You may access some of our services by signing up for a Google Account and providing us with some personal information (typically your name, email address and a password). This account information will be used to authenticate you when you access Google services and protect your account from unauthorized access by others. You can edit or terminate your account at any time through your Google Account settings.
A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies.
An anonymous identifier is a random string of characters that is used for the same purposes as a cookie on platforms, including certain mobile devices, where cookie technology is not available.
Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet protocol (IP) address. Since these numbers are usually assigned in country-based blocks, an IP address can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet.
Like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our sites. These “server logs” typically include your web request, 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.
Here is an example of a typical log entry where the search is for “cars”, followed by a breakdown of its parts:
123.45.67.89 - 25/Mar/2003 10:15:32 -
http://www.google.com/search?q=cars -
Firefox 1.0.7; Windows NT 5.1 - 740674ce2123e969
123.45.67.89 is the Internet Protocol address assigned to the user by the user’s ISP; depending on the user’s service, a different address may be assigned to the user by their service provider each time they connect to the Internet;
25/Mar/2003 10:15:32 is the date and time of the query;
http://www.google.com/search?q=cars is the requested URL, including the search query;
Firefox 1.0.7; Windows NT 5.1 is the browser and operating system being used; and
740674ce2123a969 is the unique cookie ID assigned to this particular computer the first time it visited Google. (Cookies can be deleted by users. If the user has deleted the cookie from the computer since the last time s/he visited Google, then it will be the unique cookie ID assigned to the user the next time s/he visits Google from that particular computer).This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality.
This is information that is recorded about users so that it no longer reflects or references an individually identifiable user.
A pixel tag is a type of technology placed on a website or within the body of an email for the purpose of tracking activity on websites, or when emails are opened or accessed, and is often used in combination with cookies.