Google privacy settings centralized in My Account hub

Google is making its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an attempt to make the more than 1 billion users of its digital services more comfortable about the personal information that they give the internet's most powerful company.

The simpler approach debuting Monday features a redesigned "My Account" hub where all of Google's key privacy controls can be found. Accountholders can also undergo a check-up that will break down which of the company's various services are gathering information about them. A new site at http://privacy.google.com will also address a variety of issues in a question-and-answer format.

We are trying to take the mystery out of privacy.- Guemmy Kim, Google

The new system represents Google's tacit admission that its previous setup confused and frustrated people. Until now, the privacy controls were spread across far-flung sections of Google's website with few explanations of the pros and cons of adjusting each setting.

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"It wasn't well organized and we didn't give a lotof context," concedesGuemmyKim,Google'sproduct manager of account controls and settings. "We are trying to take the mystery out of privacy."

Most people want to get a better grip on their privacy as the confluence of widely used search engines,smartphonesand online social networks makes it easier to track where they are, what they're doing and what they're thinking.

A recently released survey by the Pew Research Center found 93 per cent of adults in the U.S. consider being in controlof their personal information to be important. Yet only 9 per cent of the respondents felt they had a lot of control over their information and 50 per cent said they had little or no control over their data.

Since its 1998 inception,Googlehas built a stable of popular products that funnel valuable and sensitive information about the people using them. Besides its dominant search engine, the Mountain View, Calif., companyalso runs theYouTubevideo site, the Chrome browser,Gmail,GoogleMaps and the Android operating system for mobile devices.

Settings can limit ads

Googleanalyzespeople's interests and habits to show them ads about products most likely to appeal to them. Ads generate most ofGoogle'srevenue, which totaled $66 billion last year.

Google'sprivacy controls enable people to limit the kinds of ads they see.Accountholdersalso can preventGooglefrom logging their activities on personal computers and mobile devices, though the company will warn that imposing those restrictions might result in less-relevant and slower results from search requests.