Starting March 1, 60 of the more than 70 Google privacy policies associated with its various properties (Google search engine, Gmail, Android operating system, You Tube, Google+, etc.) will be combined into one, simpler policy. In a company blog, Alma Whitten, director of privacy, product and engineering, wrote “Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” Google insists its privacy controls are unchanged.

Google’s announcement that it will create one comprehensive profile of each user and will share data across all of its platforms has been a public relations challenge. Many users are alarmed that Google has the ability to collect data on everywhere they go and everything they do. But, is this really so different from what Google has been doing all along? Data is already shared across at least some of Google’s platforms–consider that Adwords ads are served to Gmail users based on the content of private emails. And last month, Google released Search Plus Your World, a search format that combines content that’s been privately shared with users in combination with public results.