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You are hereGoogle's "Immaculate Collaboration" with NSA? Part XIX of Privacy-Publicacy Series
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-02-04 12:44
Ellen Nakashima may have a career-making scoop with her front page Washington Post investigative reporting piece: "Google to enlist NSA to help ward off cyberattacks."
Ms. Nakeshima's revelation that Google sought out NSA's help shortly after it suffered massive cyber-attacks, apparently from China, opens a Pandorra's Box of privacy issues given that Google's aggressive "publicacy" (anti-privacy) business model, policies and practices have shown little respect for people's privacy in practice over the last decade. Anyone who understands privacy, cybersecurity, investigations, and computer code, understands that only Google's legendary PR would attempt a "don't be evil" defense of "immaculate collaboration" between super-secretive Google and the super-secret NSA.
My big question -- as publisher of www.GoogleMonitor.com which tries to keep watch on the top watcher of everyone else: Google -- is who and what process in the U.S. Government will keep watch over this pending unprecedented and unparalleled watcher collaboration process, in order to protect Americans privacy? And what will be the implications for the privacy of Google's users worldwide of Google's collaboration with the NSA given that 53% of Google's revenues come from outside the United States per Google's latest earnings report? In sum, what level of transparency and accountability can people expect from Google on this issue? The old adage, "trust but verify" would seem especially appropriate here.
***** 1. Publicacy vs Privacy Series: Part I: The Growing Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line -- The Tension Underneath World Data Privacy Day Part II: Implications of User Location Tracking Part III: Extreme Publicacy -- Does Privacy Stand a Chance? Part VI: Why FTC’s Behavioral-Ad Principles Are a Big Deal Part V: Privacy prevailed in Facebook's privacy-publicacy earthquake Part VI: Do People Own Their Private Information Online? Part VII: Where is the line between privacy and publicacy? Part VIII: "Privacy is Over" Part IX: "Interventional Targeting? "Get into people's heads" Part X: "Latest publicacy arguments against privacy" Part XI: "The Web 2.0 movement is opposed to the privacy movement." Part XII: "No consumer control over the commercialization of their privacy?" Part XIII: "Does new Government cookie policy favor publicacy over privacy? " Part XIV: "Google Book Settlement "absolutely silent on user privacy" Part XV: Yet more evidence of Google's hostility to privacy Part XVI: Poll: Americans strongly oppose publicacy & expect online privacy Part XVII: FaceBook CEO throws privacy under the bus Part XVIII: Fact-Checking Google's Privacy Principles
2. "Security is Google's Achilles Heel" series:
3. The Open Internet's Growing Security Problem series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV & XVI.
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