How Paranoid Should I Be about Google?
I'm not generally a member of the tin-foil hat society, but I have to admit that Google's plan to buy the DoubleClick ad network has me a little nervous. Google's competitors are worried that it's amassing an ad-serving monopoly, but that's not what bothers me.
Instead, I just started to think about everything Google could end up knowing about me:
What I search for: Google's cookie lasts for decades and could be keeping a record of every search query I submit.
What Web sites I've visited since 1996: DoubleClick's been around longer than Google and has probably had its own tracking cookie on every computer I've used virtually since I started browsing the Net. That cookie can keep track of what I do on many sites, not just Google's.
What I write and read in email: I have two Gmail accounts with a total of 26,389 messages, all of which have been scanned by Google so they can place contextual ads within them.
What I'm doing when: Google Calendar doesn't have all of my activities, but it's got a lot. And that info isn't just available to Google, it may be available to anyone who searches for it. Just check out this story from my colleague Bob McMillan.
What's on my hard drive: Google Desktop indexes the contents of my hard drive and mixes search results from that index in with my Web search results. If I choose the option to search across multiple computers, copies of my indexed files will be transmited to Google's servers.
Where I go: I've got Google's great Maps app on my Treo and use it frequently to get directions to new places.
What I'm producing: So far, I've only dabbled with Google's Docs & Spreadsheets applications, but the idea of creating files online and storing them on Google's servers is attractive for lots of practical reasons: the ability to collaborate, automatic backups, etc.
Given how many hard drives Google has and how faulty my memory is, it's not unreasonable to think that Google may know (or at least remember) more about me than I do.
Now, of course, there are lots of reasons to believe the situation isn't all that dire. One of the main reasons I'm not generally very paranoid is simply that I don't think that what I, as an individual, do is of any great interest to huge, multi-billion-dollar corporations. And the general gist of much of the privacy information on Google's site is that the company mostly looks at aggregate information to try and improve search results, for instance. I'm mostly willing to buy that.
But that doesn't mean there aren't dangers to having all that data about me in one place. What if the Feds ask for it? What if a company like RIAA or an ex-wife goes to court asking for it? What if future leaders of Google decide to drop the first five characters from its "Don't Be Evil" motto?
The simple answer, of course, is to stop using all these Google services. But I'm not that paranoid -- yet.
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I've heard rumblings that google got funding from the CIA - makes sense doesn't it?
I don't understand why a lot of people are worried about this Google information.
1) If you don't have anything to worry about, then what's the complaint.
2) If you use any of the following, then the same liberal approach should be brought towards them:
Credit Card
Debit Card
Credit for purchases (Experian, Trans Union, Equifax)
Toll Tag
Check
You should be more worried about ID Theft than what Search's, Ad's, etc you use through Google.
In response to your "liberal" condemning comment, let me just say:
1. I am not worried that Google or any other corporation or government agency will correctly use information about me. I am worried that they will abuse the information process.
2. The fact that those five cited sources of potential abuse of my personal information exist does not reduce the concern about adding a sixth (and likely more encompassing) data gathering agency.
"Data Mining" has been happening for many years. I worked for a company in the Dal/FtWrth area that does this for many credit cards. Why do you think once you make purchase X, afterwards you begin receiving mail related to purchase X.
Someday, you'll be driving down the toll way and BAM an Ad for product X you've purchased in the past appears on a billboard!
Watch what you buy... hahaha