Google Grants Itself the Right to Scrape from Any Website

Google has recently made a change to its privacy policy, granting itself the right to scrape from any website. The change took effect on July 1, and has caused some controversy as Google has a strong grip on the internet and remains by far the most favored web browser.

Google Reassures its Users

Google reassures its users in the first paragraph of its updated privacy policy, stating that only public information is included in the training: “Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public. For example, we use publicly available information to train Google’s AI models and build products and features such as Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities,” the privacy policy reads.

A Loophole for Sensitive Information

Although there is a small loophole to get to more sensitive information: “Or, if your company’s information is disclosed on a website, we can index it and display it on Google services.” This brings up the dilemma of how chatbots will deal with users asking for sensitive information about others. Requesting this information from a chatbot works much more efficiently than searching all possible websites yourself.
Google’s change to its privacy policy has caused some controversy, as it has a strong grip on the internet and remains by far the most favored web browser. However, Google has reassured its users that only public information is included in the training and that there is a small loophole to get to more sensitive information. This loophole brings up the dilemma of how chatbots will deal with users asking for sensitive information about others.