Google Dashboard reveals what it knows about you

Google took its own major transparency step last week, unveiling Google dashboard which is designed to let users see and control the extensive amount of data that Google has stored in its servers about them.

"In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard," Google said in a blog post. Google has been criticized frequently for amassing large amounts of data about people, but now it is giving users an easy way to find out what information it stores in their accounts.

The Dashboard is set up so that users can control the personal settings in each Google product that they use, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more. Until now, this information was available in piecemeal form. Now Google is providing a one-stop shop to see all of the data it holds about an individual. The dashboard for Gmail, for example, will list the number of conversations in your inbox and the total number of conversations in your account.

But John Simpson, of Consumer Watchdog, a frequent critic of Google, said Dashboard doesn't do enough.

"What the Dashboard does is list all the information linked directly to your name, but what it doesn't do is let you know and control the data directly tied to your computer's IP address, which is Google's black box and data mine," Simpson said in a press release. "Google isn't truly protecting privacy until it lets you control that information."

For more on Google's Dashboard:
- see this ComputerWorld.com article
- also see this New York Times article

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