Online Privacy

Google effectively lost its first formal debate over whether "Google violates its own 'Don't Be Evil" motto" at the Rosenkranz Foundation's Oxford-style debate in New York City, November 18. (Transcript here).

• Before the debate the audience was polled and voted 21% against Google and 31% for Google and 48% undecided; after the debate and learning more, 47% voted against Google and 47% voted for Google, and 6% undecided.
• Apparently, most all of the undecideds voted against Google -- that Google violated their own 'don't be evil' motto. 

What does this mean?

Google's new service www.Google.org/flutrends to help the Centers for Disease Control spot likely outbreaks of the flu geographically certainly has benefits, but I was surprised at the minimal coverage of privacy implications of this in the mainstream media -- for example in the NYTimes and WSJ.  

• Per the NYT article: "Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers."  

The big question here is can we take Google's word on this blanket assertion? There are excellent reasons why everyone should be highly skeptical.

Google has reportedly signed onto the new Global Network Initiative, where it supposedly agrees that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity."

How does Google square this new high-minded assertion with its abysmal track record on privacy?

Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be another creepy way Google could threaten privacy, Google does not disappoint. Google is now adding faceprints to what it already knows about you: voiceprints, searchprints, clickprints, homeprints, emailprints, DNAprints, and readerprints -- because Google does not "know enough about you..."

• An excellent article by Jefferson Graham in USA Today informs us that Google is now an industry-leader in... facial recognition technology!
  • In 2006, Google acquired a leading company in facial recognition, and Google is using it now to help simplify the tagging and organization of people's rapidly growing archives of digital pictures through its Picassa photo application.
  • Mr. Graham found a great quote to capture the privacy concern:
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      "I don't like it at all," says Rob Williams, who blogs for the Techgage website. "Google knows what I search for, where I live and how much time I spend on websites. Now they know what my friends look like, too. That's just too much."

The problem is this is part of a much bigger pattern of disrespect of privacy by Google.

Behavioral advertising industry... you have a problem. A BIG problem.

• Consumer reports just released a major consumer poll that shows that the vast majority of American consumers are unaware of how the behavioral advertising industry invades their privacy and that American consumers overwhelmingly want more personal control over their privacy online.  

The BIG problem the behavioral advertising industry has is that the consumer evidence strongly suggests that the industry has not respected anti-fraud consumer protection laws that require fair representation.

• Specifically, the industry has not fairly represented that they are invading individuals' privacy in ways most Americans do not approve of.  
• Simply, the behavioral advertising industry finds itself squarely on the wrong side of the American consumer, as the public and Washington focus attention on the serious Internet privacy problem of Unauthorized Tracking. 

Consider the stark poll results of the widely respected and independent Consumer Reports:     

There was a major tectonic shift in the Internet privacy debate today at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Internet privacy. 

Can you trust Google to responsibly exercise its power? Google's crusade to make all information accessible -- no matter what -- has indiscriminately mowed down another innocent bystander.

• United Airlines stock value lost three quarters of its value on Monday ravaging spooked UAL shareholders.
• Google's Googlebot 'crawlers' mistook a 2002 article about UAL's 2002 bankruptcy -- as a new and current story -- which when wrongly spread efficiently by GoogleNews alerts to everyone interested in United Airlines, freaked out current shareholders who dumped all their stock. Oops. Ouch. But no apology from Google...  
  • Two good Wall Street Journal stories yesterday and today explain Google's culpability in this disaster for UAL pretty well. 
  • This is a stark reminder, that anything that a Googlebot can crawl, it will make public. It will leave no digital rock unturned to find whatever is under a rock -- never mind if it was hidden for good reason, privacy, security, ownership -- Googlebot say "finders keepers losers weepers."

This latest UAL incident highlights a clear pattern of Google's 'publicacy' philosophy that any information Google can find, copy or photograph -- it should put immediately into the public domain whether it is accurate information, private unauthorized information, or information owned/copyrighted by others.  

Saul Hansell's New York Times blog post on "The FTC Bully Pulpit on Privacy" discussing the FTC privacy chief's views on privacy, did a public service in flagging an unnecessary and problematic gap in the Federal Trade Commission's protection of Americans' privacy.