Online Privacy

Given that Google began offering online personal health records to the public yesterday, I thought it would be timely and helpful to repost in its entirety a previous post of mine from February 21, 2008 on why Google being in the business of storing personal health records is a really bad joke.

• The post has over twenty useful and illuminating links, and many of them contain mainstream documents that underscore why the public should be extremely wary about entrusting Google with its most intimate, private and personal information.

Below is my 2-21-2008 post in its entirety -- if you missed it, or care about this issue, it's a online privacy must-read post: 

AP reports "Google to Store Patient's Health Records." Let's count the reasons why Google storing Americans' private health records is a really bad joke.

Tom Sydnor of the Progress and Freedom Foundation has done a brilliant analysis of Professor Larry Lessig's book "Free Culture" in the important context of Professor Lessig's other works. 

• This analysis is outstanding foundational-thinking and a must read for anyone who cares about preserving a free market Internet.  

Let me highlight some gems:

First, his conclusion:

• "The preceding analysis shows that FREE CULTURE does demonize copyright owners and does urge the government to eliminate copyrights and impose "quasi-socialist utopianism." Nor does this pattern stop with copyrights. Indeed, the preceding analysis shows Lessig has already claimed that to Save the Net, the government must nationalize or heavily regulate:

  • The providers of Internet-access services that own the physical network infrastructure, (e.g., net neutrality);

   

  • The providers of commercial internet applications and services, like eBay, Amazon, and Google (e.g., CODE); and

   

I had meant to comment earlier on the FT's front page story last week on: "Google resolve crumbles on 'cookies' pledge."

The intro sentence says it all:

• "Google has failed to make any headway in dealing with one of the most controversial issues of online privacy, despite promising a year ago that it would take the lead in tackling the problem."

I can't say I am surprised -- as the old adage goes, a leopard doesn't change its spots.

• We now know more about two things concerning Google:
  • That Privacy International, a leading privacy watchdog in the world, was very much on the mark in ranking Google worst in the world on Privacy in its privacy rankings and also describing Google as having an "entrenched hostility to privacy."
  • Google's public committments/word (albeit non-binding) during a governmental proceeding aren't worth much.
    • Google is unwisely backtracking on something very important to users and government officials.
    • They thumb their noses at everyone else's privacy at their own peril... 

USA Today broke a much under-appreciated and potentially blockbuster Internet security breach story: "Google searchers could end up with a new type of bug." Kudos to Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, who reported it in USA Today, and also blogged on it at ZeroDayThreat.com, a site for their book "Zero Day Threat" which defines a Zero day Threat as "a threat so new that no viable protections against it exists." 

• In a nutshell, the article and blog post explain how cybercrook hackers have figured out how to use and leverage Google's search engine results "to spread spam, and carry out scams. Typically it also lets the attacker embed a keystroke logger, which collects and transmits your passwords and any other sensitive data you type online."
• This new cyber scam ring is expected to spread rapidly, increasing from a "few dozen major websites" today, to  "hundreds of high-profile websites" in the next few weeks.
• "...in March alone... security researchers found several hundred thousand corrupted Web pages returned in common Google search queries."

Why this is a big deal:

Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term "net neutrality" is reportedly now advocating "law breaking" to advance the "information commons" agenda, which believes Internet infrastrructure, spectrum and content should be publicly owned and not privately owned.  

• Communications Daily quoted Professor Wu on March 11, 2008:
  • "To move things along, unlicensed users should start occupying unused spectrum for wireless broadband, Wu said: "You gotta start somewhere, and it always starts with law-breaking.""
• My experience is that Comm Daily is careful to accurately quote people and if Professor Wu did not to clarify his remarks, we can assume them to be accurate. I also have not seen a clarification of this after two more publications. 
• I would also like to extend the courtesy to Professor Wu to be able to qualify his remarks that they were meant to be flippant, or a joke, or that he really didn't mean to call to publicly encourage people to break the law.
  • He could resolve this issue with a simple blog post.  

That said, it is very troubling to any public civility minded person who believes in the rule of law and respect for property, that such a prominent person as Professor Wu (who coined the term net neutrality, and who proposed Caterfone open access rules for the 700 MHz auction) would advocate "law-breaking" to advance his political agenda.

Garret Rogers of Googling Google on ZDnet has an illuminating post: "Google gives developers access to your contacts."

• While Google extols the benefits of its "open" system it is irresponsibly silent on how it allows third parties "open access" to one of users most intimate and private treasures of information -- ones private contacts.
  • Doesn't law enforcement have to get a court authorized subpoena to see this type of private information?
  • Didn't Facebook just get whacked by users and privacy advocates for sharing access to contact lists without a users explicit permission?  

This is another big evidence point of a long and continued cavalier attitude to users privacy by Google (read on if you doubt this is a pattern -- these posts have most all the relevant links to all the mainstream articles on Google's cavalier attitude to Privacy):

In crusading for an "open Internet" Google is irresponsibly silent on how Google's bias for "open" innovation over user security and privacy makes tens of millions of Americans much more open and vulnerable to hackers seeking to steal their identities or to fraudsters and predators seeking to do them harm.

PC World and AP are reporting on a scary new "open source" hacker tool called Goolag produced by Cult of the Dead Cow, that exploits and leverages Google's search engine platform to make cyber-crime super-efficient.  

(Investors: don't miss the last part of this post.) 

Sources indicate that the EU is poised to approve the pending Google-DoubleClick merger soon in what insiders described as a "close call."

AP reports "Google to Store Patient's Health Records." Let's count the reasons why Google storing Americans' private health records is a really bad joke.

Kudos to Kim Hart's dead-on insights in her Washington Post article: "Some Businesses at Mercy of Google See Hope in Bid." 

• Forester research analyst Shar VanBoskirk: "There does seem to be an attitudinal shift," she said. "Two years ago, Google was everyone's salvation," because it enabled small Web site owners to easily make money by selling ads, she said. "Now people feel like it has too much control. They may prefer to work with a player that doesn't have as much power in the market."

• "Google has the edge right now. Its unmatched reach on the Web, both through its dominant search engine as well as its large base of advertisers and publishers, has allowed it to wield so much power that it can shape markets, anoint winners and declare losers, and set prices for advertising, leaving customers like Davies feeling they're at Google's mercy."

 Well said. Enough said.