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You are hereGoogle's Privacy "Buzz" Saw -- Privacy vs Publicacy Series Part XIX
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-02-11 16:16
Kudos to Nicholas Carlson of Silicon Valley Insider for an outstanding must-read post on Google's new social media additions to gmail it calls Google Buzz: "WARNING: Google Buzz has a huge privacy flaw."
Mr. Carlson's laudatory discovery of this monster privacy flaw in Google Buzz is Exhibit I in my year-long case in this research series that Web 2.0 business models, and Google in particular, believe first in "publicacy" (the opposite of privacy) because that is what benefits them not the user, and privacy second, and only because they have to because that is what users actually expect from them, according to the latest major surveys from Consumer Reports and Annenberg. Google claims it is all about the user, and giving the user control, but concerning privacy, these claims most certainly are false. Google's publicacy actions and privacy excuses are the functional equivalent of asking no one for permission to let their privacy "horse out of the barn," and then telling them that they are always free to "put the horse back in the barn" whenever they want to.
Simply, Mr. Carlson's outstanding analysis is the best and most obviously damning evidence of Google's "publicacy" business model in practice, since I coined the term "publicacy" in my House Internet Subcommittee testimony on online privacy.
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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 XIX: Fact Checking Google's privacy principles
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