Interesting article on the Google privacy issues by Don Reisinger  of CNET.com

Google has responded to Congress, defending its decision to make a controversial change to its privacy policy.

In a 13-page letter (document) to several Congress members, Google explained its decision for changing its privacy policy, and answered a host of questions posed by the lawmakers after the search giant announced its plans.

“Last week we heard from members of Congress about Google’s plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into a single document on March 1,” Google director of public policy Pablo Chavez wrote today in a blog post accompanying the letter. “Protecting people’s privacy is something we think about all day across the company, and we welcome discussions about our approach. We hope this letter, in which we respond to the members’ questions, clears up the confusion about these changes.”

Google announced plans to rewrite its privacy policy last week. The revision will give the company explicit rights to “combine personal information” across the many products and services it currently offers.

“We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google–whichever products or services you use,” Google said at the time. “This is something we have already been doing for a long time. We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period.”

Read the full article here.