Our Privacy Policy explains:
- What information we collect and why we collect it.
- How we use that information.
- The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.
- Information you give us. For example, many of our services require you to sign up for a Google Account. When you do, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name, email address, telephone number or credit card to store with your account. If you want to take full advantage of the sharing features we offer, we might also ask you to create a publicly visible Google Profile, which may include your name and photo
- Information we get from your use of our services. We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you watch a video on YouTube, visit a website that uses our advertising services, or view and interact with our ads and content. This information includes:
- Device information
We collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version,
unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number). Google may
associate your device identifiers or phone number with your Google Account - Log information
When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we automatically collect and store
certain information in server logs. This includes:- details of how you used our service, such as your search queries.
- telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number, forwarding numbers,
time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing information and types of calls. - Internet protocol address.
- device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type,
browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL.
cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account.
- Location information
When you use Google services, we may collect and process information about your actual
location. We use various technologies to determine location, including IP address, GPS, and other
sensors that may, for example, provide Google with information on nearby devices, Wi-Fi access
points and cell towers. - Unique application numbers
Certain services include a unique application number. This number and information about your
installation (for example, the operating system type and application version number) may be sent to
Google when you install or uninstall that service or when that service periodically contacts our servers,
such as for automatic updates. - Local storage
We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using
mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches. - Cookies and similar technologies
We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Google
service, and this may include using cookies or similar technologies to identify your browser or device.
We also use these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with services we offer
to our partners, such as advertising services or Google features that may appear on other sites. Our
Google Analytics product helps businesses and site owners analyze the traffic to their websites and
apps. When used in conjunction with our advertising services, such as those using the DoubleClick
cookie, Google Analytics information is linked, by the Google Analytics customer or by Google,
using Google technology, with information about visits to multiple sites.
We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.
We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Google Account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.
If you have a Google Account, we may display your Profile name, Profile photo, and actions you take on Google or on third-party applications connected to your Google Account (such as +1’s, reviews you write and comments you post) in our services, including displaying in ads and other commercial contexts. We will respect the choices you make to limit sharing or visibility settings in your Google Account.
We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.
We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Google Account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.
If you have a Google Account, we may display your Profile name, Profile photo, and actions you take on Google or on third-party applications connected to your Google Account (such as +1’s, reviews you write and comments you post) in our services, including displaying in ads and other commercial contexts. We will respect the choices you make to limit sharing or visibility settings in your Google Account.
- Review and update your Google activity controls to decide what types of data, such as videos you’ve watched
on YouTube or past searches, you would like saved with your account when you use Google services. You can
also visit these controls to manage whether certain activity is stored in a cookie or similar technology on your
device when you use our services while signed-out of your account. - Review and control certain types of information tied to your Google Account by using Google Dashboard.
- View and edit your preferences about the Google ads shown to you on Google and across the web, such as
which categories might interest you, using Ads Settings. You can also visit that page to opt out of certain Google
advertising services. - Adjust how the Profile associated with your Google Account appears to others.
- Control who you share information with through your Google Account.
- Take information associated with your Google Account out of many of our services.
- Choose whether your Profile name and Profile photo appear in shared endorsements that appear in ads.
- With your consent
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information. - With domain administrators
If your Google Account is managed for you by a domain administrator (for example, for Google Apps users) then your domain administrator and resellers who provide user support to your organization will have access to your Google Account information (including your email and other data). Your domain administrator may be able to:- view statistics regarding your account, like statistics regarding applications you install.
- change your account password.
- suspend or terminate your account access.
- access or retain information stored as part of your account.
- receive your account information in order to satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
- restrict your ability to delete or edit information or privacy settings.
- For external processingWe provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
- For legal reasons We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
- meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
- enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
- detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
- protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
We work hard to protect Google and our users from unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold. In particular:
- We encrypt many of our services using SSL.
- We offer you two step verification when you access your Google Account, and a Safe Browsing feature in Google Chrome.
- We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems.
- We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.
When this Privacy Policy applies
Changes
Specific product practices
- Chrome and Chrome OS
Play Books - Payments
- Fiber
- Project Fi
- Google Apps for Education
- Information about our technologies and principles, which includes, among other things, more information on
- how Google uses cookies.
- technologies we use for advertising.
- how we recognize patterns like faces.
- A page that explains what data is shared with Google when you visit websites that use our advertising, analytics and social products.
- The Privacy Checkup tool, which makes it easy to review your key privacy settings.
- Google’s safety center, which provides information on how to stay safe and secure online.
“access to your personal information”
For example, with Google Dashboard you can quickly and easily see some of the data associated with your Google Account.
“ads you’ll find most useful”
For example, if you frequently visit websites and blogs about gardening, you may see ads related to gardening as you browse the web.
“advertising services”
For example, if you frequently visit websites and blogs about gardening that show our ads, you may start to see ads related to this interest as you browse the web.
“and other sensors”
Your device may have sensors that provide information to assist in a better understanding of your location. For example, an accelerometer can be used to determine things like speed, or a gyroscope to figure out direction of travel.
“collect information”
This includes information like your usage data and preferences, Gmail messages, G+ profile, photos, videos, browsing history, map searches, docs, or other Google-hosted content.
“combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other Google services”
For example, when you’re signed in to your Google Account and search on Google, you can see search results from
the public web, along with pages, photos, and Google+ posts from your friends and people who know you or follow you
on Google+ may see your posts and profile in their results.
“connect with people”
For example, you could get suggestions of people you might know or want to connect with on Google+, based on the connections you have with people on other Google products, like Gmail and people who have a connection with you may see your profile as a suggestion.
“credit card”
Whilst we currently don’t ask for a credit card during sign up, verifying your age through a small credit card transaction is one way to confirm that you meet our age requirements in case your account was disabled after you have entered a birthday indicating you are not old enough to have a Google Account.
“develop new ones”
For example, Google’s spell checking software was developed by analyzing previous searches where users had
corrected their own spelling.
“device identifiers”
Device identifiers let Google know which unique device you are using to access our services, which can be used to
customize our service to your device or analyse any device issues related to our services.
“device-specific information”
For example, when you visit Google Play from your desktop, Google can use this information to help you decide on
which devices you’d like your purchases to be available for use.
“improve your user experience”
For example, cookies allow us to analyze how users interact with our services.
“legal process or enforceable governmental request”
Like other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from governments and
courts around the world to hand over user data. Our legal team reviews each and every request, regardless of type, and
we frequently push back when the requests appear to be overly broad or don’t follow the correct process.
“limit sharing or visibility settings”
For example, you can choose your settings so your name and photo do not appear in an ad.
“linked with information about visits to multiple sites”
Google Analytics is based on first-party cookies. Data generated through Google Analytics can be linked, by the Google
Analytics customer or by Google, using Google technology, to third-party cookies, related to visits to other websites, for
instance when an advertiser wants to use its Google Analytics data to create more relevant ads, or to further analyze its
traffic.
“maintain”
For example, we continuously monitor our systems to check that they are working as intended and in order to detect
and fix errors.
