Two Simple Steps to Take Control Over Google’s New Privacy Policy

Google’s new privacy policy takes effect Thursday. What’s new about it?

Now, it allows Google to integrate information it collects about you from all your Google accounts. So instead of treating your YouTube, Gmail and Google+ accounts as separate entities, Google now sees you as just one user. That should make it easier to target you with relevant ads.

But since Google first announced the change in a blog post on Jan. 24, the holistic approach has some made some people leery of the new privacy policy. France’s official data-protection agency has even launched an investigation to see whether the changes conflict with European privacy law. If you think Google‘s new policy will let the company know too much about you, there are a couple of small steps you can take before Thursday to have some measure of control.