Google is only making changes to the ToS, and no changes will be made to its Privacy Policy. (Image: AP)
Google has started alerting users that it will be updating its terms of service (ToS) on March 31. With the update, the company claims to offer “improved readability” and “better communication”. The update will also be adding Chrome, Chrome OS and Google Drive to its ToS.
“We are updating our Terms of Service. Get to know our new Terms before they take effect on March 31, 2020,” the notification e-mail reads. The mail states that it is only making changes to the ToS, and that there will no changes will be made to its Privacy Policy. Google users have the option of “Reviewing” these new terms or simply confirming with the ‘Got It’ option.
Google has listed the summary of these changes here, in bullet points. The new ToS includes new sections, the count of which have been taken up to 18 sections now. They have also added links, which provide clarifications to each point.
In a FAQ page, Google explains that the ToS update will not bring a change to how a user’s information is treated in Chrome, Chrome OS and Google Drive. It also states that this will be a general ToS and all of the products will have their own service-specific additional terms and policies.
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‘Improved readability’ implies that the company has made the ToS much easier to understand by adding links to useful information and providing definitions. ‘Better communication’ means that the company will explain when it is making changes to its services, while at the same time notifying its users about the same.
The addition of Google Chrome, Chrome OS and Drive has been done so that all of these products are governed by the same general ToS as all other products. However, all of these will continue to have their own service-specific terms and policies.
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Apart from this, the company has also started to display a warning, when users are accessing the Chrome web store on Microsoft’s new Edge browser. To recall, Microsoft recently shifted to using Chromium as the base for its Edge browser, allowing users to use the Chrome web store to add extensions to the browser.
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While installing extensions, the warning simply states that Google recommends users should use Chrome instead of Edge to use extensions “securely”. This warning is not displayed when users download and install extensions on any other Chromium-based browsers.