Over the years, Google has created a rich seam of user-related data... data it can potentially (and very extensively!) mine, as seen in this illustration from Slovakia-based security vendor ESET.
The so-called "unified privacy policy" combines over 60 separate Google product and service privacy policies into one-- giving the company greater freedom to pick and choose data from sources as varied as Gmail, Google Maps, Search and YouTube. So the company can technically use someone's search history to target ads for them while watching YouTube videos.
The ESET blog suggests a number of ways for users to protect their data-- such as how to stop Google from tracking search results over multiple devices and how to effectively manage their online identity.
The unofficial Google motto might be "don't be evil," but European officials are still investigating whether the policy changes violate EU data protection rules...
