This this one word Google has cools the controversy going on in California, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which requires the operator of a commercial Web site that collects personal information to link to its privacy policy from its home page.

Google earlier said that the users can get to know about the privacy via “About Google” or by searching for “Google privacy policy”. After the issue buzzed about the blogosphere, four privacy groups wrote Google urging to add the link.

At last Google added the link. In official Google Blog Marissa Mayer, the Google vice president, said that Google’s two founders told her the word privacy could only be added to the home page if another word was deleted, leaving the page at 28 words. So the copyright notice at the bottom of the page was changed from “© 2008 Google” to “© 2008 – Privacy.”

before and after

Google Privacy Center looke pretty neat too with privacy practices specific to certain products or services and videos. Do check it out.