I first wanted to share some very interesting quotes that are relevant to the GoogleDoubleclick merger and privacy in general -- before I delve into the issue of "intimacy theft" more specifically.
In Comm Daily Thursday, a widely respected attorney in Washington, Christine Varney, who identified herself as a longtime attorney for DoubleClick said:
This is the marketplace context that the government will review the Google-DoubleClick merger.
The real impetus for this blog post on privacy was the WSJ article on Wednesday "Search Engines seek to get inside your head."
- It's articles like this that clinically explain the vast amount of extremely intimate information that search engines and website advertisers like DoubleClick routinely collect, keep, analyze and use to profile and micro-target ads to consumers.
- Essentially these companies have compiled personal individual dossiers on most every online American that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover would have died to get his hands onto!
These companies have already "stolen" most Americans intimate private information for the purposes of selling it to the highest bidder. Here are some questions folks should ask about this widespread and systematic "intimacy theft:"
- How do we know if these online personal "dossiers" are secure from hackers or inadvertant disclosure (like the once-a-week announcements we hear about some company saying "oops" sorry we disclosed tens of thousands of Americans' social security numbers?)
- What assurances, safeguards do we have that these intimate dossiers and personal profiles can't get into the hands of really bad people: stalkers, child predators, identity thieves, con artists, blackmailers, kidnappers, gangs, criminals, or just plain unethical people or careless or peeping employees?
- What are the internal controls and background checks at Google and Doubleclick to ensure these bad things can never happen?
- Who audits to ensure that these internal controls are sufficient?
- What legal recourse do Americans' have if their intimacy is stolen and they are harmed, physically, emotionally, or financially?
Another set of big concerns is who decides what type of information is used to target whom with ads, or what age group or characteristic is targeted -- in order to generate the highest profits?
-
Will Google sell someones medical fears or private disclosures of illnesses or diseases to drug companies?
-
Will Google share race, religion or sexual orientation information to those who might have hidden sympathies for hate groups?
-
Will Google target children with fast food or candy?
-
Will Google target tweens with age inappropriate advertising messages?
-
Like movie ratings, will Google be family friendly and have guidelines so age inappropriate ads don't get targeted to the wrong age group?
What are Google's guidelines, assurances, and ethics policy concerning micro-targeting of ads based on intimate information?
-
On what basis can people have enough information to know whether they can trust Google-Doubleclick with such intimate private information?
-
Will we hear anything more from Google other than "Trust us." "We know privacy is important and we would never do anything that would violate that trust?"
Consider these troubling facts:
-
Google may have more intmate private information on more people than any other company...over a half billion peolple use Google search.
-
Google may have one of the weakest privacy policies of any major corporation.
-
Google may have the least government privacy oversight of private information of most any other major corporation.
-
Google may have perfected the business and profitability of "behavioral targeting" or "intimacy profiling" more than any other major corporation.
-
Google may have the widest divergence of expectations of what their users think is private, and what is actually private, than any other major corporation.
-
Google may have cooperated with the Chinese govenment in censoring speech which may have endangered the freedoms and lives of Chinese human rights activists.
Bottomline: Is Google worthy of the carte blanche trust they currently seem to enjoy?
