Wired

Privacy controversies continue to plague Google. In this seemingly unshakeable cycle of improvements and gaffes, it's nearly impossible to make a full accounting of Google's user privacy impacts and protections. But it's critical to understand how the people on the front lines of that fight think about their jobs, and how it fits in with the fundamental truth of how Google makes money.

Google will start showcasing privacy mechanisms directly within search, so you can review and delete your activity log without having to navigate to another screen, learn what data Google collects about you, and more easily find relevant granular privacy controls. Google says it will take similar steps for greater transparency across some of its other products as well. Google calls the new feature Your Data, and has experimented with offering information about data privacy in different formats like video, illustrations, and text.

Four years ago, the United Nations predicted that more than half of the global population would be connected to the internet by 2017, buoyed in part by “the fastest growing technology in human history”: mobile broadband. The world missed the mark.