You can read what the Washington Post said about it on Tuesday, and if you Google it, you can find a myriad of blog posts and other reactions to the announcement. They range from outrage to it's-no-big-deal. Regardless of how you feel, I think it's just good to be informed. Even though I've been well aware that Google uses the content of my Gmail to tailor ads to me for quite some time, for some this might be a surprise. And it hasn't been coincidence for a long time when an ad for that Ann Taylor sweater you were admiring online yesterday suddenly shows up in the right sidebar of that blog you read.
Yes, Google has been paying attention to what you do online for a long time. They do it to provide you with better search results and they do it to provide you with (hopefully) advertising that you might actually be interested in. But if you're using Google or have an Android phone, you should be aware of the change which will become effective March 1. It's actually not that horrible of a read. Go read it now, and if you have a Google Account, check out your dashboard to see specifically what information Google has and is collecting about you.
NOTE: I'm not at trying to alarm you. In fact, I'm not planning to cancel my personal Google account, but I am planning on carefully reviewing my dashboard this weekend. I think it is important to be informed in this digital world of ours. Also, it's probably not a horrible idea to encourage your students to take a look as well. So, take a minute to read the policy, then come back here and share new learning, insights, questions and/or issues that this post raises for you.
Another NOTE: If you recall, last spring I did a post that included a really interesting TED Talk about how web content gets personalized for you by sites like FaceBook, Yahoo!, and Google. Reviewing that talk in light of this change makes for some interesting thinking.
