Online Privacy

Google effectively lost its first formal debate over whether "Google violates its own 'Don't Be Evil" motto" at the Rosenkranz Foundation's Oxford-style debate in New York City, November 18. (Transcript here).

• Before the debate the audience was polled and voted 21% against Google and 48% for Google; after the debate and learning more, 47% voted against Google and 47% voted for Google.
• Apparently, most all of the undecideds voted against Google -- that Google violated their own 'don't be evil' motto. 

What does this mean?

Google’s ambitious “publicacy” efforts, i.e. making all information public that technology can make public whether or not its private, is running into stiff resistance in Europe, which takes privacy very seriously.

• “Once greeted warmly, Google wears out welcome” is the headline of an informative article in the International Herald Tribune which catalogues how Google’s efforts to make legally private information public -- is running afoul with European laws and regulations. 

Google's new service www.Google.org/flutrends to help the Centers for Disease Control spot likely outbreaks of the flu geographically certainly has benefits, but I was surprised at the minimal coverage of privacy implications of this in the mainstream media -- for example in the NYT and WSJ.  

• Per the NYT article: "Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers."  

The big question here is can we take Google's word on this blanket assertion? There are excellent reasons why everyone should be highly skeptical.

Google has reportedly signed onto the new Global Network Initiative, where it supposedly agrees that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity."

How does Google square this new high-minded assertion with its abysmal track record on privacy?

Google is not really for openness because Google won't allow 'open' auctions for its keyword advertising so bidders could track the bidding and have some influence over the outcome.

Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be another creepy way Google could threaten privacy, Google does not disappoint. Google is now adding faceprints to what it already knows about you: voiceprints, searchprints, clickprints, homeprints, emailprints, DNAprints, and readerprints -- because Google does not "know enough about you..."

• An excellent article by Jefferson Graham in USA Today informs us that Google is now an industry-leader in... facial recognition technology!
  • In 2006, Google acquired a leading company in facial recognition, and Google is using it now to help simplify the tagging and organization of people's rapidly growing archives of digital pictures through its Picassa photo application.
  • Mr. Graham found a great quote to capture the privacy concern:

    • "I don't like it at all," says Rob Williams, who blogs for the Techgage website. "Google knows what I search for, where I live and how much time I spend on websites. Now they know what my friends look like, too. That's just too much."

Behavioral advertising industry... you have a problem. A BIG problem.

• Consumer reports just released a major consumer poll that shows that the vast majority of American consumers are unaware of how the behavioral advertising industry invades their privacy and that American consumers overwhelmingly want more personal control over their privacy online.  

The BIG problem the behavioral advertising industry has is that the consumer evidence strongly suggests that the industry has not respected anti-fraud consumer protection laws that require fair representation.

There was a major tectonic shift in the Internet privacy debate today at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Internet privacy. 

Can you trust Google to responsibly exercise its power? Google's crusade to make all information accessible -- no matter what -- has indiscriminately mowed down another innocent bystander.

Saul Hansell's New York Times blog post on "The FTC Bully Pulpit on Privacy" discussing the FTC privacy chief's views on privacy, did a public service in flagging an unnecessary and problematic gap in the Federal Trade Commission's protection of Americans' privacy.