Internet giant, Google is attempting to explain the changes made to its privacy policy in order to put to rest some concerns over the privacy of the users who use the company's services from around the world.

Google said that the changes brings the company in line with its rivals including, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple. The company was responding to questions from the members of US Congress. The online search giant that also offers services in social networking, mobile-device software and other services and collects user data, faced questioning from the authorities after it announced changes to its privacy policy.

Google Policy Manager Betsy Masiello had said through a blog post that users would continue to have control over what information is accessed by the company and that the company is not going to collect any information that it did not collect in the past. The users will still decide upon how much of Google services they want to use.

She added that certain services like Google search, Google maps, and YouTube do now require a user to create a username and for services that require a username, there are told to reduce the amount of information being collected by the company.