Google announced mid-January that it is going to start combing nearly all of the information it has on its users, under a new privacy policy. The new policy will become effective March 1.
Under the new policy if you use services such as Gmail, Google Plus, and Yahoo, Google will be able to take your information from one and combine it with information from another. This could mean that you'll search for something on Google and see ads for a subject you've just been discussing with a friend over email. It could also allow Google to notify you that you are late for a meeting, because it is able to get your location from your phone and can see an appointment scheduled on your calendar.
Google has depicted the switch as an improvement that will make its privacy policies easier to understand and help deliver more helpful information to users. However the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) contends that Google's new policies will violate restrictions imposed in an agreement reached with the FTC last year. The EPIC filed a lawsuit Wednesday stating that the agreement gives the FTC the power to stop Google from implementing the planned privacy change.
This article discusses the lawsuit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/epic-ftc-google-privacy_n_1263844.html?ref=technology
This article discusses what the privacy policy changes mean for users: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/01/25/what-do-googles-privacy-changes-mean-for-you/
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