What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade
this is absolutely horrifying - yes, IMHO it will be one of the first
major tests of the USA Patriot act - this is a murder investigation -
the prosecutors hit Google up for the search records of the defendant
to potentially be used as evidence to convict.
the bigger picture here is that each and every search you perform
using Google (and probably all the other search engines as well) are
tracked and recorded and can be solicited at any time without your
consent or knowledge by our government whenever they ask for it.
I rank this right up there with using the US military to "oversee"
bird flu quarantine victims.
November 28, 2005
Editorial Observer
What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade
By ADAM COHEN
At a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial this month,
prosecutors announced an unusual piece of evidence: Google searches
allegedly done by the defendant that included the words "neck" and
"snap." The data were taken from the defendant's computer,
prosecutors say. But it might have come directly from Google, which -
unbeknownst to many users - keeps records of every search on its
site, in ways that can be traced back to individuals.
Google is rolling out revolutionary new features at a blistering
rate, most recently Google Base, which could evolve into a classified
ad service, and the Google Book Search Library Project, which aims to
put a vast number of books online. Google's stock recently soared
past $400 a share, putting its market capitalization ahead of Time
Warner and Gannett combined, and the personal fortunes of its
founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, above $14 billion.
Google is the subject of a new book, "The Google Story," by David
Vise and Mark Malseed, that tracks the company's rise from a student
project at Stanford through its success in outmaneuvering Microsoft,
Yahoo, AOL and other behemoths for Internet dominance. Google has
long presented itself as the anti-Microsoft, a company that the
digerati regard as a force for good in the technology world.
In many ways, it has lived up to that reputation. But if it wants to
hold on to its corporate halo, Google should do a better job of
including users in decisions about how their personal information is
collected, stored, and shared.
Google has succeeded so extraordinarily because its founders were
able to see the future of the Internet more clearly than the rest of
Silicon Valley. At a time when "Web portals" - sites that directed
users to online services - were seen as the future, Mr. Brin and Mr.
Page were convinced Internet searches would be pivotal. They
developed technology that was far better than other search engines at
sifting through the galaxy of information online. They slapped a typo
of a name on their project - a misspelling of "googol," the number
represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeroes - got venture capital, and
quickly built a company.
Mr. Brin and Mr. Page believed companies should not be able to get
better placement on the results page by paying money, something their
competitors allowed. Google strictly separated out "sponsored"
results, or ads, from search results, and gave up untold millions of
dollars in revenue by keeping Google's home page ad free. The company
has taken other idealistic positions over its short lifetime,
including conducting its initial public offering by a "Dutch
auction," so Wall Street would not control it.
Google operates according to two core principles. One is its mission
"to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful." The other is its motto, "Don't be evil,"
which Mr. Brin and Mr. Page take so seriously that they included it
in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. As Google grows and
spreads into new areas, these two principles are turning out to be in
tension. Google's book search, for example, aims to make books
universally accessible in a way some authors regard as dismissive of
their rights and illegal.
The biggest area where Google's principles are likely to conflict is
privacy. Google has been aggressive about collecting information
about its users' activities online. It stores their search data,
possibly forever, and puts "cookies" on their computers that make it
possible to track those searches in a personally identifiable way -
cookies that do not expire until 2038. Its e-mail system, Gmail,
scans the content of e-mail messages so relevant ads can be posted.
Google's written privacy policy reserves the right to pool what it
learns about users from their searches with what it learns from their
e-mail messages, though Google says it won't do so. It also warns
that users' personal information may be processed on computers
located in other countries.
The government can gain access to Google's data storehouse simply by
presenting a valid warrant or subpoena. Under the Patriot Act, Google
may not be able to tell users when it hands over their searches or e-
mail messages. If the federal government announced plans to directly
collect the sort of data Google does, there would be an uproar - in
fact there was in 2003, when the Pentagon announced its Total
Information Awareness program, which was quickly shut down.
In the early days of the Internet, privacy advocates argued that data
should be collected on individuals only if they affirmatively agreed.
But businesses like Google have largely succeeded in reversing the
presumption. There is a privacy policy on the site, but many people
don't read privacy policies. It is hard to believe most Google users
know they have a cookie that expires in 2038, or have thought much
about the government's ability to read their search history and
stored e-mail messages without them knowing it.
Google says it needs the data it keeps to improve its technology, but
it is doubtful it needs so much personally identifiable information.
Of course, this sort of data is enormously valuable for marketing.
The whole idea of "Don't be evil," though, is resisting lucrative
business opportunities when they are wrong. Google should develop an
overarching privacy theory that is as bold as its mission to make the
world's information accessible - one that can become a model for the
online world. Google is not necessarily worse than other Internet
companies when it comes to privacy. But it should be doing better.