Google on Monday announced that the company would combine individual privacy policies from a variety of its products into one main policy. Critics of the change were worried that Google was now collecting more data than before, and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded answers. The Mountain View-based company has now responded to Congress and defended its decision to change the policy. Read on for more.

In a 13-page letter to several members of Congress, Google answered the lawmakers’ questions and addressed concerns. ”Last week we heard from members of Congress about Google’s plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into a single document on March 1,” Google’s director of public policy Pablo Chavez wrote on the company’s blog. “Protecting people’s privacy is something we think about all day across the company, and we welcome discussions about our approach. We hope this letter, in which we respond to the members’ questions, clears up the confusion about these changes.”

Google maintains that while the policy will be changed, users will continue to have custom controls over what Google can and can’t do. According to the company, Google collects three types of data from users: log data, account data, and service data. Log data is anonymous and consists of a computer’s interaction with Google’s services. Account data is all the user information stored for each individual, and service data is information that relates to a particular product, such as Google Maps, however it is “not necessarily associated with any users.”

UPDATE: Google reached out to us with a statement and informed us that the company is not collecting any new or additional data.

“We’re not collecting any new or additional data about users. Our updated privacy policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve our users’ experiences on Google – whichever services they use. This is something we have already done for a long time for many of our products.”

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Earlier this week, Google announced that the company would combine individual privacy policies from a variety of its products into one main policy. The idea behind it was to provide users with a “more intuitive Google experience.” Critics of the change are worried that Google is now collecting more data than ever, however, leading members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee to demand answers. Read on for more.

The search giant claims that it is not collecting more data and the new terms merely clarify how existing data is used to improve the Google experience. “We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period,” said Google’s policy manager Betsy Masiello in a blog post. “You still have choice and control. You don’t need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube.”

Users will also have access to privacy controls, with the ability to customize options for search history, Gmail, and other services. “You can use as much or as little of Google as you want. For example, you can have a Google Account and choose to use Gmail, but not use Google+,” Masiello added. “Or you could keep your data separate with different accounts — for example, one for YouTube and another for Gmail.”

Beating out popular own-brand apps like Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube, Facebook holds the title as the most actively used Android app. Market research firm Nielsen on Monday published the findings of a month-long study to determine the most-used Android apps currently available for the platform. The study made use of Nielsen’s proprietary on-device monitoring software, which has been voluntarily installed by thousands of panelists across the country. Beyond the Android Market itself, Facebook was the most actively-used app on the Android platform over the past 30 days in all age brackets. Among users aged 18 to 24, Google Search was the second most used app in the firm’s new study with 77% of panelists having opened the app over the past 30 days. Gmail and Google Maps followed with 79% a piece, and YouTube slid in behind them with 64%. Following the suite of Google apps was Pandora Radio with a distant 30%. A similar study conducted by Nielsen in July found that Facebook was the third most popular app behind Google Maps and Gmail. Read on for more.

Among users aged 25 to 34, 81% used Facebook over the past 30 days while 80% used Gmail. Google Maps was used by 79% of panelists and Google search was used by 78%. YouTube followed with 56% and the most actively used non-Google app other than Facebook was Angry Birds at just 29%. Users aged 35 to 44 painted a similar picture. Facebook and Gmail were tied at 77% followed by Google Search (75%), Google Maps (73%) and YouTube (51%). Angry Birds then followed with a distant 35%.

Interestingly, Amazon’s third-party app store ranked in the top-15 most actively used apps across all age groups. The Amazon Appstore was No.14 among users aged 18 to 24 with 14%, No.11 among users aged 25 to 34 with 22% and No.10 among users aged 35 to 44 with 24%.

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Google’s Gmail application for iOS is again available in the iTunes App Store. The application originally launched on November 2nd but was pulled hours later after Google discovered that notifications weren’t working properly. Google says it has fixed the bug and that notifications now work as originally intended. Image HTML emails will also display properly now. In addition, Google said it is already working on future updates that will add support for customizations, improved notifications, mobile specific signatures and multiple accounts. Gmail for iOS requires iOS 4 or a later version of Apple’s mobile operating system, and you’ll need to uninstall the original buggy version before downloading the new app. 

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Microsoft’s senior director of online services Tom Rizzo recently published a blog post titled “Google Graveyard” that tore into Google’s practice of launching products and then killing them off shortly after. “Google customers are not finding tools they have been using over the years,” he explained. “Google releases experimental products and tracks adoption to determine whether to continue providing them. Its products are like spaghetti, Google throws them up against the wall to see if they stick.” Read on for more.

Rizzo asked how any business could “take the risk” of using Google’s tools. “Case in point, as of its June release, the company is giving Google Plus a try in the social space, and now they are providing access to it for Google Apps customers. But can businesses and schools trust it to be there for very long, judging by the history of Google’s social family,” he questioned.

Rizzo also noted that Google Wave lasted just 15 months, Google Aadvark lasted 19 months and Buzz lived for just 20 months before it was killed off. Google certainly has a right to kill off any product that isn’t profitable, nobody will deny Wave and Buzz were failures, but perhaps Rizzo is more worried about a recent Gartner report that suggested Google’s Gmail solution — one that stuck on the wall — is ready to go head-to-head with Microsoft in the enterprise email market.

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Google released an official Gmail application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on Wednesday. According to Google, the application supports the following features:

• Get alerted to new messages with push notifications and sounds
• Find an email in seconds with search across your entire inbox
• Autocomplete email addresses from your Gmail contacts or select from your device’s address book
• Upload photos with a click using the new attachment button in compose view
• On iPad, navigate your inbox and read your mail simultaneously with split view

Additionally, Gmail for iOS offers a priority inbox feature for finding your most important messages, threaded conversations, labeling, archiving and more. It also supports touch gestures so that users can swipe left or right to view labels and folders. Gmail requires an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 4 or newer. It is available for free in the iTunes App Store now.

UPDATE: And just like that, it was gone. “The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications,” Google posted on Twitter. “We have pulled the app to fix the problem. Sorry we messed up.”

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This past summer, Google began rolling out a sample of its revamped Gmail user interface and on Tuesday it discussed many of the brand new changes that will be deploying over the next few days. Gmail’s conversation view has been streamlined and now includes photos of each contact. Additionally, it will automatically resize itself to look best depending on your screen size thanks to a new “elastic density feature.” Themes now support HD images and there is a new “smarter navigation” panel on the left hand side of the display that is customizable. Google also added a drop-down search box for more accurate email searches. The software giant says users will begin to see the option to “switch to the new look” in the bottom right-hand of their inbox over the next few days. A video of the changes follows after the break.

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Gartner released a report on Friday that suggested Google’s Gmail solution is ready to take on Microsoft in the enterprise email arena despite having just a tiny fraction of the market. “While Gmail’s enterprise email market share currently hovers around 1 percent, it has close to half of the market for enterprise cloud email,” Gartner research vice president Matthew Cain said. “While cloud email is still in its infancy, at 3 percent to 4 percent of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 percent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 percent by year-end 2020,” Cain added, noting that Gmail should “now be considered a mainstream cloud email supplier.” Microsoft Exchange and Gmail are the only two services that have gained momentum during the past few years while other solutions, such as Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino have started to fade out. Cain said that companies should consider splitting their email services between the cloud and on-premises servers which, for now, “plays to Microsoft’s strengths.” Gartner also suggested the Google/Microsoft rivalry will make it tougher for other competitors to enter the industry. Gartner’s full press release follows after the break.

Gartner Says Google Gmail is Now a Viable Alternative to Microsoft in the Enterprise Email Market

Outlook for Cloud Email to Be Discussed at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

STAMFORD, Conn., September 16, 2011—  After being in the market for five years, Google’s enterprise Gmail is building momentum with commercial organizations with more than 5,000 seats, and it now presents a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange Online and other cloud email services, according to Gartner, Inc.

“The road to its enterprise enlightenment has been long and bumpy, but Gmail should now be considered a mainstream cloud email supplier,” said Matthew Cain, research vice president at Gartner. “While Gmail’s enterprise email market share currently hovers around 1 percent, it has close to half of the market for enterprise cloud email. While cloud email is still in its infancy, at 3 percent to 4 percent of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 percent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 percent by year-end 2020.”

Mr. Cain said that, other than Microsoft Exchange, Google Gmail is the only email system that has prospered in the enterprise space over the past several years. Other enterprise email providers — Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino — have lost market momentum, Cisco closed its cloud email effort and VMware’s Zimbra is only now refocusing on the enterprise space.

Google’s journey to enterprise enlightenment, however, is not complete. Google focuses on capabilities that will have the broadest market uptake. Large organizations with complex email requirements, such as financial institutions, report that Google is resistant to feature requests that would be applicable to only a small segment of its customers. Banks, for example, may require surveillance capabilities that Google is unlikely to build into Gmail given the limited appeal.

While Google is good at taking direction and input on front-end features, it is more resistant to the back-end feature requests that are important to larger enterprises. Large system integrators and enterprises report that Google’s lack of transparency in areas such as continuity, security and compliance can thwart deeper relationships.

“Email is not a commodity, and cloud email is still maturing,” Mr. Cain said. “We believe that, for most organizations, performing one more on-premises upgrade, which will take an organization through 2014, is the most prudent approach. A less-risky approach to cloud email is via a hybrid deployment, where some mailboxes live in the cloud and some are located on premises. This hybrid model plays to Microsoft’s strengths given its vast dominance of the on-premises email market.”

“The intense competition between Microsoft and Google will make both vendors stronger and enable them to apply cloud expertise to other enterprise cloud endeavors,” Mr. Cain said. “The rivalry will make it difficult for other suppliers to compete directly in the cloud email and collaboration space.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Google Gmail Emerges as a Significant Threat to Microsoft in the Enterprise” at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1770424.

Mr. Cain will provide additional analysis on the cloud email at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo.

Market research firm Nielsen on Tuesday revealed the 20 most popular Android applications in the United States. Using data obtained from metered device usage as opposed to observations from surveys as most similar data is collected, Nielsen studied Android owners’ app usage over the past month. The result is a ranking of the platform’s top-20 applications by active reach, or the percentage of Android device owners who used each app within the past 30 days. Google’s Android Market topped the charts overall as well as among men and women alike, with a reach of nearly 91%. Google Maps was the second most popular app overall with a reach of 74.6%, and the app was No. 2 behind the Android Market for men with 77.1%. Gmail was third among men (75.5%), Google Search was fourth (72.4%) and Facebook rounded out the top-5 (66.9%). Among women, Facebook (81%) was second behind the Android Market, followed by Gmail (73.4%), Google Maps (71.9%) and Google Search (71.3%).

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Hacker groups like Anonymous and LulzSec capture the bulk of mainstream media’s attention when it comes to hackers these days, but it looks like the Iranian government may have recently pulled off an attack that trumps both hacker groups and then some. According to reports, Iranian hackers with ties to the government have managed to executive an MITM attack that compromises Google’s SSL security. An MITM attack, or Man-In-The-Middle attack, is a cyberattack that allows an attacker to covertly intercept or even modify data as it is being transmitted between two computers over the Internet. Using a certificate issued on July 10th by Dutch SSL certificate authority DigiNotar, Iranian hackers have reportedly been able to spy on communications sent via Gmail and other Google services for more than five weeks. DigiNotar revoked the compromised SSL certificate on Monday, however most browsers do not check to see if a certificate has been revoked by default. As such, Mozilla has already released an update to Firefox and Thunderbird that revokes trust for the DigiNotar certificate, and Google said it will soon release a similar update for Chrome. Apple and Microsoft have yet to address the matter publicly or state if and when we can expect updates to Safari or Internet Explorer.

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Google has started to build its open-source WebRTC software into its Chrome web browser, according to CNET. WebRTC was introduced in May as a new open tech that allows developers to create quick HTML and Javascript APIs for building voice and video chat applications on the web. With WebRTC built into Chrome, users would presumably be able to initiate video chats over Gmail’s Google Talk chat application without the need for installing Google’s plug-in first. “Our goal is to enable Chrome with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs,” Henrik Andreasson, a Google employee on the WebRTC project said. “We are working hard to provide full RTC support in Chrome all the way from WebKit down to the native audio and video parts.”

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Sprint announced on Thursday that the HTC EVO 4G will receive an over-the-air update to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) on June 6th. Android 2.3 will reactivate the ability to sync multiple Gmail accounts on the EVO 4G, and will also improve download management and streaming media applications, among other changes. Want the update sooner? Here’s a little secret: you can download the update and install it manually beginning on June 3rd. Simply navigate to your phone’s settings menu, choose “system updates,” and then select “HTC software update.”

[Via Phone Scoop]

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On Wednesday hackers based in China broke into hundreds of Gmail accounts, including those of journalists, Chinese political activists, U.S. government officials, and government employees from South Korea. Given the aforementioned targets and recent revelations that China has a branch of its military focused on cyber activities, it may seem like China’s government had a role in the attack. On Thursday, however, China denied any involvement in the the breach, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese government, said that the accusations were “unacceptable” and that any allegation suggesting that “the Chinese government supports hacking activity is entirely a fabrication.”

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Google on Wednesday confirmed that a hacker from China was able to break into hundreds of Gmail accounts. The company detected the breach and notified victims of the attack, as well as relevant government authorities. Several high-profile accounts were hacked according to the Associated Press, including senior U.S. government personnel, Chinese political activists and government officials from South Korea. The actual hack was a phishing scheme that prompted users to enter their user names and passwords on a web page. “It’s important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected—these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself,” Google said on its official Gmail blog.
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During the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco today, Google discussed the future of its “Chrome OS” platform, as well as some future products that will soon hit the market. Google has improved the performance of Adobe Flash playback within the browser, and the OS will now recognize I/O devices — such as cameras — when they’re plugged into the computer. Other new features include Google Music integration, a new photo manager that allows you to send directly to Picasa, and an option to upload files directly to Box.net. Google’s bread and butter, Gmail, Calendar, and Docs are all now accessible while offline. Hackers will also appreciate a new built-in jailbreaking feature. Samsung and Acer will both introduce “Chromebooks” on June 15th for $429 and $399, respectively. Samsung will also sell a 3G version of its Chromebook for $499. Those prices sound a bit high to us considering that you can get a full-fledged Windows 7 netbook for that price, but we’ll see if the market agrees.