The Price of Privacy? Ask Google.

by Bianca Bernstein

After making a hell of an effort and doing a lot of PR work in order to control the opinions of their sheer disregard for users’ lack of privacy with regards to things like personal search histories and user accounts, Google has introduced yet another piece of technology to the world that will surely have them held up for criticism once again.

Google’s new tool is one that automatically transfers information from one computer system to another. Of course, unlike its predecessors, this software does in fact have to be authorised to a certain degree by its users before being administered, because (and here comes the hang nail) Google apparently have to store all transferred user information for a minimum of 30 days. (And here comes another not-so small bump in this uneven road in the quest for user convenience) This might be perceived as not too much of a risky compromise for the user, until, of course, they find out that the Bush Administration is demanding information on users’ personal search histories, and that this is not only limited to the United States of America. (Did I not mention the possibility and repercussions of this in a previous post?)

Google, however, is in the midst of a furious court battle with the American Justice Department, who is focusing inadvertently on the risks of personal information held by Internet companies being turned over to outside sources, including the government. It seems that this is everybody’s concern. And so it should be, especially since Yahoo!, Microsoft and Time Warner’s America Online have all relinquished personal user information that was requested by the Bush Administration, but all three of these companies seem to be under the impression that they have not, in any way, violated user privacy. I beg to differ.

That is exactly what they have done. I also think that if their users knew what they had done, that they might well delete themselves from the online world in fear of being monitored by higher powers and the possibility of being implicated for things out of their control. What does the Bush Administration want with people’s search histories anyway? Don’t they have better things to do with all their time and power? And what’s to say that Google will not surrender to the increasing government pressure that is being imposed upon them, especially when their less popular counterparts have already caved in so easily?

It is understood that Google’s aim is to clearly introduce technological concepts to the world that will serve no purpose but to improve our daily online experiences, but it also needs to be taken into consideration that, with this type of evolution, comes added responsibility and risk. The public domain may not necessarily react towards your product as you had hoped, especially when it seems as though our personal space has not been taken into consideration, and is clearly being violated in a way that is out of search engine companies’ control.

2007/05/21 | permalink | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

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