Google emphasises on user privacy for Chrome and Drive via fresh policies

Emphasizing the need to protect user data, the tech giant Google on Friday came out with additional changes in policies for Chrome extension and Drive API.

The new policies included creating trustworthy Chrome extensions and tightening Drive API to give users more control over their data.

For Chrome extensions, Google has asked developers to only request access to the appropriate data needed to implement their features. If there is more than one permission that could be used to implement a feature, developers must use the permission with access to the least amount of data, Google said on its blog.

It has also asked extensions to post a privacy policy and handle the data safely.

On Drive API side, Google gave additional guidelines and restrictions for apps seeking to access Google drive. It had made similar plans earlier for Gmail data. It will limit apps that use Google Drive APIs from broadly accessing content or data in Drive.

This development is an extension of the project Strobe, which was launched last year in October to review third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data.

"We make a significant investment to empower users to help them remain in control of their online experience," said Ben Smith, Google Fellow and Vice President of Engineering.

Third-party apps and websites create services that millions of people use to get things done to make this ecosystem successful, people need to be confident their data is secure, and developers need clear rules of the road.

Besides, Google is also grooming local content creators in India. It foresees half a billion Indian language users to be online in the next three years. The tech giant sees a huge opportunity for local language content creators to expand their reach and to improve the local language web ecosystem.

It is scheduled to host Webmaster conference workshops across 15 cities in five Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, along with English.