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<p>Google is the gateway to the Internet for billions of people. However, to use Google’s multiple platforms and services, users must accept Google’s terms. With the advent of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), Google made significant changes to these terms. In this article, we scrutinise the intertextual relations between Google’s privacy policies and terms of service (ToS) and the GDPR – and the discursive co-constitutive complexity within and between these frameworks. We argue that the material and communicative articulation of Google’s privacy policies and ToS should be understood as deliberative data politics delimiting users’ agency, consent, and privacy. Furthermore, we emphasise complexity and the demands of reducing complexity as two opposing dynamics. While the GDPR required Google to make its terms and policies clearer and more understandable, ironically, in the process of accommodating GDPR’s demand of increased transparency, the discursive complexity of Google’s policies has in fact increased.</p>
</abstract>

Google is the gateway to the Internet for billions of people. However, to use Google’s multiple platforms and services, users must accept Google’s terms. With the advent of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), Google made significant changes to these terms. In this article, we scrutinise the intertextual relations between Google’s privacy policies and terms of service (ToS) and the GDPR – and the discursive co-constitutive complexity within and between these frameworks. We argue that the material and communicative articulation of Google’s privacy policies and ToS should be understood as deliberative data politics delimiting users’ agency, consent, and privacy. Furthermore, we emphasise complexity and the demands of reducing complexity as two opposing dynamics. While the GDPR required Google to make its terms and policies clearer and more understandable, ironically, in the process of accommodating GDPR’s demand of increased transparency, the discursive complexity of Google’s policies has in fact increased.

Co-constitutive complexity<break/><italic>Unpacking Google’s privacy policy and terms of service post-GDPR</italic>

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Google is the gateway to the Internet for billions of people. However, to use Google’s multiple platforms and services, users must accept Google’s terms. With...

Concept	Explanation	Examples
Vertical	Intertextuality over time (within one kind of document)	Google’s privacy policies (1999-present); Google’s terms of service (1999-present)
Horizontal	Intertextuality between different kinds of documents or texts	How privacy policies are related to terms of services; how privacy policies and terms of service are related to GDPR

Co-constitutive complexityUnpacking Google’s privacy policy and terms of service post-GDPR

Published Online: May 06, 2021

Page range: 124 - 140

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0033

Keywords
data politics, user rights, privacy policy, Google, GDPR

© 2021 Bjarki Valtysson et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Two kinds of intertextuality

Co-constitutive complexityUnpacking Google’s privacy policy and terms of service post-GDPR

Published Online: May 06, 2021

Page range: 124 - 140

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0033

Keywordsdata politics, user rights, privacy policy, Google, GDPR

© 2021 Bjarki Valtysson et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Two kinds of intertextuality

Keywords
data politics, user rights, privacy policy, Google, GDPR