Google vows greater user privacy at its developer event, after decades of data collection
- Google showcases new products at annual developer conference that are designed to giver users more control over personal data
Google is jumping on the latest tech trend: privacy.
At its annual conference for software developers, the search and advertising giant showed off several new products and features that it said were created to help maintain customers’ control over their own data.
Instead of the bulk of that data being shared with Google and stored in cloud computing centers, in the company’s vision it would instead live on devices like mobile phones and tablet computers.
That would mark a big shift for Google, which relies on the reams of data to help train its artificial intelligence software to better function without human interference. And it could have implications for Google’s business model, which depends on advertising sales for nearly 90 cents out of every dollar it makes.
Marketers have made Google the largest ad-seller in the world in large part because of the comprehensive picture it can paint of users through the data it collects.
One executive after another at Google’s I/O conference in its hometown of Mountain View, California, emphasised new privacy settings in products like search, maps, thermostats and updated mobile phone software.