Google Dashboard Provides Information on Google Accounts

Google launched what it calls Google Dashboard - a tool giving Google users a single view of all of the data associated with their Google accounts.

Photo: Google Dashboard Provides Information on Google Accounts

The Google Dashboard is being touted as a way for users to, at a glance, see information about their Web usage, email usage and more when they are logged into Google services such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Calendar. Google provides an overview of the Dashboard in a video in its main blog. Dashboard will let users delete information as well, a move that could help to address privacy concerns that have been raised surrounding Google's collection of so much data about its users' online habits.

On the left-hand side of the screen, Google Dashboard lists items such as Contacts, Docs, and Gmail, while on the right-hand side, users can drill down through functions such as "edit personal information," "sharing documents," and "manage chat history." There is also a "privacy and security help" area.

"Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data," Google staffers wrote in a blog post today, PC World reports.

It was also reported, you'll need to sign in to view your own personal information. Users can also edit account information from the page, such as privacy settings. Of course transparency doesn't mean that you can't still pat yourself on the back.

The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this--and we hope it will become the standard," Google said in a statement, PC Magazine reports.

News agencies also report, new dashboard will help Google get a better look at each one of us. A senior Google official said that within Google’s data centers, there were gazillions of data bits about all of the company’s users, their searches, click, emails, YouTube uploads, etc. But he said it would be loads of work to bring all of this data together and build individual profiles. What’s more, it would require lots of computing, and there wasn’t a clear business model for it.

But now, there appears to be a model. To address privacy concerns, Google appears to be bringing together much of that data. And once they have it, they’re much closer to a coherent look at each one of us. Perhaps there’s still not a business model for such personalized data. It’ll be a while before advertisers can come up with 500 million customized pitches. But who knows what correlations Google will find between our various activities. And if this dashboard generates trust, the pickings should grow even richer, BusinessWeek reports.