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You are hereFact Checking Google's New Privacy Principles -- Part XVIII Publicacy vs Privacy Series
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-01-28 19:13
Google posted "Google's Privacy Principles" for International Privacy Day and made a pretty sweeping official representation to the public in its announcement post:
Is this a factually accurate and fair representation of Google's past and current privacy practices? If it is indeed a true statement:
Google also asserted that: "Like our design and software guidelines, these privacy principles are designed to guide the decisions we make when we create new technologies."
Let's consider this sweeping representation of Google's privacy behavior from another perspective. If Google considers these privacy principles to be sound and defensible, and Google has "always operated with these principles in mind," wouldn't that suggest if Privacy International was right in 2007 in ranking Google as worst in the world in privacy, would that not still be true today? Let's now fact-check Google's five privacy principles. "1. "Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services."
"2. Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices."
"3. Make the collection of personal information transparent." "4. Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy." "5. Be a responsible steward of the information we hold." In sum, Google's Privacy Principles are new and do not reflect how Google has operated over the last decade. As much as Google gives privacy lip service, Google actually remains the single biggest threat to Americans' privacy.
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 » |