Google in Privacy Hot Seat, Again

Google is in the hot seat again. It's faced this time with privacy advocates white knuckled and anxious over its proposed acquisition of DoubleClick. Privacy groups are worried a Google DoubleClick combo will turn Google into Big Brother - or worse the Thought Police.

In a joint complaint filed today to the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group the privacy groups are calling for an investigation into the potential threat to consumer privacy posed by Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick. Here is a link to the copy of the complaint(Acrobat file). And here is a link to our news story.

I think the complaint is worthy and I applaud those behind it. Whether or not the complaint to the FTC derails the acquisition or not, Google needs to be monitored closely for what it is today and what it is quickly becoming.

Google, to me, seems a lot like a nuclear reactor. There are obvious pluses (great Web services) and worrisome cons. For example what happens when something goes wrong at Google?

As Google has grown, so has the amount of data it can collect from you. In so doing, with each new product offering (Google Desktop, GMail, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets) it has upped the privacy ante in the amount of data it collects. If Google suffers a privacy screw up it has the potential of being the digital equivalent of the nuclear nightmare at Three Mile Island. If Google gobbles up DoubleClick the stakes are raised to the Chernobyl level.

What Will Google Do With Your Web Tracks?

A combined DoubleClick and Google would have an unprecedented ability to profile you and me. In 2005, more than 60 million American adults used search engines on a typical day, according to the complaint filed today. DoubleClick reaches an estimated 80 to 85 percent of the users of Internet with its ads, according to the complaint.

To me it seems Google's desire to own DoubleClick contravenes its "Don't be evil" policy. DoubleClick has a sorted history with privacy activists. In 2000 the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint to the FTC accusing it of violating a section of the law forbidding "unfair and deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce."

EPIC was concerned about DoubleClick when it bought access to a trove offline data when it acquired Abacus Direct, a marketing firm. EPIC's complaint centered on DoubleClick's "Abacus Online," a group of DoubleClick's clients for which the advertising company tracks Web surfers' habits using online data, such as IP addresses, with off line data such as names, postal addresses, and catalog purchase histories.

In March of 2000, DoubleClick's CEO Kevin O’Connor released a statement that said that the company made a “mistake by planning to merge names with anonymous user activity across Web sites in the absence of government and industry privacy standards.” Since then DoubleClick has been on a watch-list of privacy activists.

For me, the jury is out on whether DoubleClick puts my privacy before its business model of selling ads.

Possible Future Privacy Meltdown

Today's joint complaint points to concerns it has with Google's search engine.

"Search terms entered into the main Google search engine alone may reveal a plethora of personal information such as an individual's medical issues, associations, religious beliefs, political preferences, sexual orientation, and investments monitored."

Privacy concerns don't just stop with search. Google's tentacles now extend to a number of different areas as Ed Albro points out in a recent blog How Paranoid Should You Be about Google?

The fear among privacy activists is the acquisition of DoubleClick will permit Google to track both your Internet searches and the Web sites you visit.

The complaint also points out that Google stores your search activity marrying it with your IP address. Last month Google announced that it would soon begin to “anonymize” the data linking search terms to a specific IP address after 18 to 24 months. Big whoop, I say.

Will "anonymizing" (only identifying the user by a number) be enough? I agree with privacy activist that say no.

Last year 658,000 anonymous AOL users had their search records picked through by a New York Times reporters who quickly matched a number of people with anonymous search data.

Take a look at this site called AOL Search Logs that stands as a lasting reminder of an Internet behemoth's screw up. The site is dedicated to making it easy to profile people based on "anonymized" data.

As the complaint points out "Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world."

Like a nuclear reactor, we must have complete trust that the people behind Google know what they are doing. Do you?

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