You are here Google as "Big Brother" and the "dark side" of accessible info
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-04-30 17:49
The New York Times article today on Google highlights another reason all Americans should be worried about Google's anti-competitive arbitrage of U.S. privacy laws and consumer expectations.
- "Google has been working with officials in Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to make some of that information more broadly available."
- That "information' is the data on state websites; and is part of Google's mission "to make all the world's information accessible and useful."
- "But the increased exposure of government records through web searches is likely to raise privacy concerns."
- "It will be easier to collect disparate facts about a person, which bound together and aggregated, can present troubling problems..."
I just heard someone joke:
In true "1984" Orwellian "doublespeak" Google always has a pat answer how it is always "good" to accumulate information on all things and people.
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Unfortunately Google appears totally blind to the potential dark side of how all this "accessible" accumulated information in the wrong hands: criminals, con artists, predators, or unscrupulous players in government, or for the wrong purposes -- can "be evil" the complete opposite of Google's supposed motto: "Don't be evil."
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