Google: New privacy policy to have little impact on enterprise

IDG News Service - Google's plan to share user data across its online services will have little effect on users of the company's enterprise, government and education application suites, the company said.

The rewrite of Google's privacy policies, scheduled to roll out March 1, will not change Google Apps for business, government and education because those applications suites already link services such as email and calendars, Google spokesmen said. If a user of one of those suites logs into a separate personal Google account, such as YouTube or Google+, those services will not share the user's personal information with the enterprise suites, they said.

Google will not establish relationships between users' work accounts and personal accounts, a spokesman said.

Businesses, government agencies and schools using the apps suites have contracts with Google that generally specify how the vendor will handle their users' data, Google said.

"As always, Google will maintain our enterprise customers' data in compliance with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to their domain," Google said in a statement. "The new privacy policy does not change our contractual agreements, which have always superseded Google's privacy policy for enterprise customers."

IT research and consulting firm Gartner is advising private-sector enterprise clients that use Google Apps to review their contract with Google to make sure it contains language that shields their organization from potentially negative effects of this new privacy policy.

"If they signed the standard Google Apps contract or didn't insert specific language about privacy and the like, then these Google privacy policy changes will impact them," said John Pescatore, a Gartner vice president and research fellow.

Google Apps administrators should also make it clear to their employees that they need to have a separate, individual Google account for nonwork Google tasks and applications, especially personal use of the Google+ social networking site, he said.

"In many cases, especially in smaller businesses, that's not the case. The user has the Google account and that's what's being used for doing work email and personal email and Google+ and search," Pescatore said.

Another reason why existing Apps customers need to review their contracts is the recent controversy over how Google allegedly bypassed privacy settings in browsers, including Safari and Internet Explorer, he said.

It's an example of why enterprises need to be specific about what privacy settings and policies they want respected, independent of the changes Google may make to its own privacy policies and practices, he said.

"The only real protection enterprises have is in what contractual language they have with Google," he said.

From Google's part, the company could be more "friendly" to enterprises, in the same way that it has agreed to certain requirements in order to win Google Apps business from U.S. federal government agencies, he said.