Double-Speak - Google's 'Privacy' Policy

[mosaix]

It's going to be interesting to see, the next time there's a military coup in a fairly industrialised country, just how the junta goes about identifying the potential 'trouble makers'. I wouldn't be at all surprised if social networking sites weren't their first port of call.

[Vertigo]

I think after the recent lessons learned the hard way in the Arab Spring that they would be foolish not to. Of course the problem is then trying to trace back to the real person.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

I think after the recent lessons learned the hard way in the Arab Spring that they would be foolish not to. Of course the problem is then trying to trace back to the real person.

Now being made easier by Google...

[hopewrites]

well there is no stopping one from having multiple Google accounts. and they dont require ID proving I am a real person... yet

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

well there is no stopping one from having multiple Google accounts.

Except, apparently, that if you use the same computer to access the multiple accounts they link them via the IP address.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Except, apparently, that if you use the same computer to access the multiple accounts they link them via the IP address.

Well, that is definitely wrong. It is the same as giving someone a poor credit rating because another person at the same postal address has a bad debt. You cannot hold someone else responsible for the actions of another, simply because they share an address.

[hopewrites]

I use different browsers and havent been linked.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Dave

Well, that is definitely wrong. It is the same as giving someone a poor credit rating because another person at the same postal address has a bad debt. You cannot hold someone else responsible for the actions of another, simply because they share an address.

Strangely, Dave that's exactly what credit rating agencies do, and agree it's entirely wrong.

[purple_kathryn]

They really really want my phone number but of the stuff they have for me on the dashboard it's not really anything I'm concerned about

Unless I'm missing something. It doesn't seem to have google searches or anything like that

[Dave]

Originally Posted by mosaix

It's going to be interesting to see, the next time there's a military coup in a fairly industrialised country, just how the junta goes about identifying the potential 'trouble makers'. I wouldn't be at all surprised if social networking sites weren't their first port of call.

Having more information about people can be a good thing too though:
Wife uncovers husband's 'bigamy' on Facebook

"Facebook is now a place where people discover things about each other they end up reporting to law enforcement," Mr Lindquist said. [Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist told the Associated Press news agency.]

It is now quite unusual practise to look up someone on social networking sites before interviewing. What happens if, in the future, they find nothing?

(I'm deliberately not on facebook or linkedin because I don't want to speak with hundreds of people I vaguely know and share little in common. My wife finds it a conflict of interest with her work so isn't either.)

But just say I went for an interview in future, and they can find nothing about me on facebook (unlikely, because a google search still brings up other things)?

"We can't possible hire you Mr. Dave, it seems that you don't exist!"

[mosaix]

Shouldn't that be 'usual' practice, Dave?

[Dave]

Er.. yes, it was the spellchecker wot done it!

[Lenny]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Except, apparently, that if you use the same computer to access the multiple accounts they link them via the IP address.

Where on earth have you heard that? It sounds to me like blatant FUD.

---

Am I the only one who welcomes Google's changes, and thinks that the French watchdog is overacting based on incorrect assumptions?

I use a lot of Google products, including having an Android phone, and to me their changes make perfect sense - if my GPS data shows I spend a lot of time in Durham, then why shouldn't the search results on my desktop browser reflect that? And if log in to a website using my Google account on my desktop and choose to save the passwords, why should that choice not extend to my other Google devices, like (if I had one) my Chromebook?

At the moment, Google is a company that offers a number of different, disconnected services. In an interconnected world, this is insane - because people generally stick with the same provider of services if they like one, it's simply logical to assume that these services, all of which are accessed through the same account, share information.

Google's change in privacy policy does not affect, in any way, the information they collect - everything they want to collect is already collected by at least one of their services. I'd expect that the sharing of information between services would decrease the amount of information collected, because two services collecting the same data simply results in increased redundancy, which isn't ideal for a company that stores information about hundreds of millions of users (so what if this turns out to be just a single extra megabyte per person, you ask? One megabyte, 100,000,000 times, is an extra 100 terabytes of data. When you think that the average laptop or computer these days has a 500gb hard-drive, which is half a terabyte, you start to understand the sheer amount of data 100TB holds. Now, we can probably assume that redundant data probably accounts for more than a single megabyte per person, which means that the cost for storage is immense).

The fuss kicked up in the EU is because a French watchdog doesn't agree with the sharing of information between Google services such as Gmail, Calendar, Search, etc, and the Google services such as YouTube and Blogger. Because they're under their own branding, the CNIL thinks they're not Google services... even though you access them through the same Google account.

Now the French seem to have a weird view of the Internet, and how information works. Recently they fined Google a lot of money because a French cartographer that provides maps for a price, claimed that Google are only offering Maps for free so that they can kill off all competitors and start charging for their service - a claim that completely contradicts the business models of every Google service to date. Before that, Google were fined because search results for a French insurance provider brought up the word "crook" - a result of the autocomplete algorithm, which predicts results based on the searches of other users. There's a similar case in the US where searches for the Presidential candidate "Santorum" bring up unsavoury definitions of his surname, which came about through a campaign held by a gay rights activist in 2003 who was offended by Santorum's anti-gay stance.

At the end of the day, everything Google is doing is to benefit the users, by offering a better service. Sure, they'll see an increase in revenue from better targeted ads, but what's the problem with that? Google is a for-profit company, not a social service. Better targeting of ads will hopefully mean that people are more likely to see something in an ad that appeals to them. If you don't like the ads, don't click the ads (or install an ad-blocker and face I,Brian's disappointment).

Some final points:

- Trust the algorithm. Everything Google does with information is carried out by algorithms, not people. No-one is going to read your data.

- Change your world view. Despite living in a world connected by the Internet, people still have this quaint idea of privacy. The currency of the times is information, so get used to it or drop out of the world entirely.

- Google is by no means the worst offender. Google are simply one of the larger companies. Do people honestly think that Yahoo don't collect information from people who use their services? Do people honestly think that Microsoft doesn't? That Apple doesn't? Get real. As above - information is currency. To take the opinion that Google is the only company in the world doing things on this scale is foolishly naïve. Whilst I may give the impression that I am happy for everything about me to be known, that's not true. However, I'd rather my data was with Google than someone like Yahoo, or Apple - I trust Google, I don't trust their competitors.

- Everyone forgets Facebook. It seems that Facebook is on to a winning strategy: make a horrendous privacy decision, act cute and blame childish ignorance when people react angrily, repeat. It's got to a point where no-one bats an eyelid over Facebook's newer changes, which is scary. Read through Facebook's privacy policy. They own any data you add to their platform, and can keep it "until it is no longer useful to provide you services". This includes status updates, notes you post, pictures, and videos. But it's worse. If you create a Facebook app to share your blog, then anything you post to that app is owned by Facebook, whether you're an individual person, or a big corporation... has anyone seen the Guardian news apps on Facebook, out of interest? Yeah, Facebook owns that content.

---

In short, people are making a huge fuss over incredibly little. Google's new privacy policy allows the sharing of information collected by Google services, between Google services, to improve Google services, and it's all done by algorithms.

[Vertigo]

Agreed Lenny! As I said earlier in the thread; for better or worse the old notions of privacy are now obsolete. Whether you consider it to be better or worse is, to be brutal, irrelevant. That particular Pandora's box is well and truly opened and it's not going to close again. As Lenny says we have to get used to it; learn to live with it.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Lenny

- Change your world view. Despite living in a world connected by the Internet, people still have this quaint idea of privacy. The currency of the times is information, so get used to it or drop out of the world entirely.

Lenny, you post seems both condescending and dismissive. In particularly I would like to draw you attention your use of the word 'quaint' to describe other peoples views of privacy.

Surely the very nature of privacy is something that is going to be different from person to person, and someone with different views hardly deserves an invitation to 'drop out of the world entirely'.

I was 66 this week and I've been writing computer programs since 1963, I opened my first internet account in, I think, 1993. In short I have a wealth of experience of a 'world connected to the internet'. But I also have maturity, experience and a healthy regard for what others can do with personal information.