Google protecting its privacy to invade your privacy; Why Google is the King of Double Standards

Kudos to the Washington Examiner for their great article exposing Google's "secrecy" in filming its privacy-invading StreetView product. Google guarding its privacy to invade yours! This is another precious example of Google's double standard philosophy of one set of rules for "don't be evil' Google and another set of rules for "the evil" unwashed masses.

• From the Examiner article: "Google officials say controversy about whether the filming violates privacy is partly to blame for the secrecy. Though the Mountain View-based company says public filming is legal, it fears angered residents might harass the drivers or tamper with the expensive cameras." 
  • Google of course must respect the 'privacy' of its drivers, while its drivers trample on the privacy of everyday citizens, or in Google parlance, the "targets" for their targeting advertising.

As many readers of this blog know, one of my pet peeves are double standards. Google's elitist and sanctimonious expectation that they don't have to follow the same rules as their user "targets" -- enthrones Google as the King of Double Standards!

Let's review just a few of their whopping double standards:

• Google's mission is to organize the world's information to make it accessible, when Google is among the most secretive, non-transparent, 'black box' public entities anywhere.
• Google pushes "open" everything for everyone else, open access, open source, open social, open handset, open spectrum, but the auction process that is at the core of Google's business model is not open but an opaque 'black box' that users cannot see into to learn how to succeed in Google's world-dominant auction system for search keywords.
• Google seeks to impose net neutrality legislation only on so-called "duopoly" broadband providers, but maintains that Google, the worlds most dominant access point for the Internet, should not have net neutrality principles apply to them. 
• Google routinely claims to value people's privacy and support comprehensive privacy reform legislation, but Google has not changed or updated its privacy policy since October 14, 2005. 
• Google has urged Microsoft's antitrust consent decree should be extended, but maintained that antitrust scrutiny of Google's behavior in breaking up the creation of a stronger competitor in Microsoft-Yahoo is unwarrranted.
• Google aggressively protects its intellectual property of copyrights and patents, while strongly supporting "information commons" reforms that would devastate the intellectual property rights of their competitors. 
• Google runs its not-for-profit Google.org as a for-profit division of Google, when every other corporation in America abides by the clear separation of for-profit and not-for-profit entities to avoid even the appearance of tax evasion.      

Need I go on? These are just a few of the high profile double standards that are deeply ingrained in the Google culture and business philosophy.

• And people wonder why I am tough on Google in this Blog... the facts merit it.
• Someone has to say "the Emperor has no clothes."