Paying Attention to the Fine Print

I logged into YouTube earlier this week and was greeted by a notice alerting me to new privacy policy changes. I have to admit that I clicked to acknowledge that I read the brief sentence and went on with what I logged in to do (in this case post a video to our company's channel). I didn't give the notice much thought because as someone who manages social media accounts I have to agree with whatever the user agreement says in order to keep using the service. It's the terms of service and I want to use the service, so there doesn't really seem to be a choice.

But the reading assignments for this week's Theory and Practice of Social Media course got me thinking about social media and privacy. So I tried to track down that notice that I had so easily dismissed earlier. I couldn't actually locate the information on YouTube (somehow this didn't surprise me) but I cam across this TechCrunch article about Google announcing new privacy tools last month. I'm going to assume this is what I saw this month. Even if this isn't what I acknowledged this week, I'm glad I cam across this article. It's about new consumer privacy tools that Google rolled out for Google Maps, YouTube and Google Assistant (I have to admit I wasn't even aware that last one is a thing, perhaps it's only on Google devices, like Siri on Apple devices?). I use Waze more than I use Google Maps, but I like that I can now opt-out of being tracked by the app by enabling incognito mode. I like the idea of being able to block Google literally knowing my every move.

Another new feature is being able to auto-delete your YouTube history. I'm wondering if this will help filter out unwanted content suggestions. Sometimes I'm searching for a specific video for work, say on autonomous vehicles, for a presentation or something. It doesn't mean I want to see recommendations for autonomous vehicles all the time. Now only if I could get Amazon to understand that when I purchase a baby gift for a friend I don't want to receive constant suggestions for baby clothing.

The valuable lesson I learned this week (which perhaps should have been more obvious) is that even if the fine print is something I feel I have to agree with regardless of what it says, I should still probably read it. I may find some useful information!

This blog post is an assignment for the Theory and Practice of Social Media course at NJIT.