Blog Insights: Google and Privacy

What bloggers are saying about the latest in information technology



Any company that proclaims that "do no evil" in its corporate motto is just asking to be knocked off its self-appointed pedestal. As I've said before in this space, the "do no evil" motto is nothing more than a marketing slogan, and Google is no more or less prone to doing evil than any other Web company. But of course, Google's holier-than-thou motto has evoked just the results that one would expect, and Privacy International has taken a swing at the company in its recent report, "A Race to the Bottom-Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies." The research group ranked Google at the very bottom of its ranking of companies' privacy practices.

It's interesting that the report didn't give any company at all a "green light" on privacy, which makes me think the report is less an analysis of individual companies' practices, and more of a manifesto against how the Web works in general, its commercialization, and the financial engines that have contributed to its growth. The report contends that "The current frenzy to 'capture' ad space revenue through the exploitation of new technologies and tools will result in one of the greatest privacy challenges in recent decades." Yes, the Web is driven by advertising. It's about time we accepted that fact and got over it. Want a free search engine? You're gonna look at a few ads. Were it not for the commercialization of the Web-which has been accomplished primarily through advertising-we'd all still be using slow dial-up modems and there'd be maybe a dozen or so web sites in the world worth looking at. And, you'd have to buy a subscription to search engines, instead of having unlimited free access.



It goes without saying that privacy is a good thing, and we should have more of it. Wiretapping without a court order? Bad idea. RFID chips in peoples' arms? No way. I certainly don't want some faceless bureaucrat at Google to exclaim, "Oh, look, that Blacharski guy over at ITworld reads web sites about JFK conspiracy theories! Let me write that down on our list!" But of course, that's not what they are doing. They do, however, track surfing patterns, for the purpose of collecting demographic information, and also for the purpose of serving ads and links to me that are likely to be interesting to me.



Matt Cutts also disagrees with the Privacy International conclusions, and takes the report to task on several different points. A big issue here, which supporters of the report pooh-pooh, is that last year, the Department of Justice subpoenaed several companies to receive data on user queries. AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo turned over the data, but Google refused. I have taken Google to task on other issues in the past, but they get orchids from me on this front. Matt correctly posits that the privacy group's efforts would have been better spent on analyzing ISPs that sell actual user data (Privacy International didn't include ISPs in its study).



Searchengineland calls the Privacy International report a "mishmash of details that can't be properly weighted against each other." The report itself notes that it was compiled from public sources, including newspaper articles and blog entries. In fact, the blog notes that the use of cookies to track readership and use of sites is fairly common, and in fact, Google seems to be just about the same as the rest in terms of specific practices. On the flipside though, Searchengineland makes a good suggestion, noting that simply because Google has grown so big and has gained so much attention, it would do well to appoint a "privacy czar" to help ensure that users have as much privacy as possible.