Today Google stated that its new privacy policy will afford the same experience users are familiar with, along with the same controls. According to their official blog, Google also states that they’ve undertaken their largest ever user-education program, to help make sense of the new changes.

>>> Check out WebProNews’ special page covering Google Privacy … updated live. Subscribe to the Google Privacy RSS feed too!

Some key points from Google, posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering:

Our Privacy Policy is now much easier to understand.

We’ve included the key parts from more than 60 product-specific notices into our main Google Privacy Policy—so there’s no longer any need to be your own mini search engine if you want to work out what’s going on. Our Privacy Policy now explains, for the vast majority of our services, what data we’re collecting and how we may use it, in plain language.

Our Privacy Policy will enable us to build a better, more intuitive user experience across Google for signed-in users.

If you’re signed in to Google, you expect our products to work really beautifully together. For example, if you’re working on Google Docs and you want to share it with someone on Gmail, you want their email right there ready to use. Our privacy policies have always allowed us to combine information from different products with your account—effectively using your data to provide you with a better service. However, we’ve been restricted in our ability to combine your YouTube and Search histories with other information in your account. Our new Privacy Policy gets rid of those inconsistencies so we can make more of your information available to you when using Google.

Our privacy controls aren’t changing.

The new policy doesn’t change any existing privacy settings or how any personal information is shared outside of Google. We aren’t collecting any new or additional information about users. We won’t be selling your personal data. And we will continue to employ industry-leading security to keep your information safe.

Contrary to some of the potential concerns users have with the new policies, Google makes it possible to adjust privacy settings. Users can turn off search and Youtube history, as well as opt out of getting tailored ads. One can also browse the net in “incognito mode” with Chrome. Users also aren’t required to sign in to search, Youtube or Google maps. And, user information does not have to be combined across all Google accounts.

Whitten adds that Google will “continue to look for ways to make it simpler for you to understand and control how we use the information you entrust to us. We build Google for you, and we think these changes will make our services even better.”