Because of the
recent events with Google and their privacy protections (or lack thereof), I've begun to wonder why the company who's dedicated to "do no evil" would
data-rape their customers at all. Why do they need to have user searches that can be tied back to individuals? Why can't they anonymize it from the beginning and still be able to fine tune their search engine.
In order to answer this question that no one seems to be asking (and Google certainly hasn't provided), I am calling out Google. Here is the e-mail I am sending to them:
Dear Google,
As a company who is dedicated to "do no evil", you are no doubt aware of what a problem data rape (i.e., data mining) is to consumers. Vast profiles of data that is shared with others to make even bigger profiles harms people like no other technology that exists today.
However, you have stated in your defense that you need this data to improve your services which, obviously, is at least partially true. You certainly can't improve your search engine if you don't have heaps of data to study after all.
What I and others like me want to know is what does personally identifiable information have to do with sevice enhancement? Is it to "provide a better user experience" like the other companies (which we all know means, "study you so we can exploit you where you're weak or sell your data to someone else who can")?
What can your services possibly do for us that can't be done the exact same way without creating profiles of us?
Please note that your answer (or lack thereof) will be posted at http://www.jeremyduffy.com/blog. We all eagerly await your response.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Duffy
Consumer Advocate
P.S. I am a big fan of the Google search engine and have used it every since I discovered it many years ago. I recommend it to everyone and still do because of the clean/simple interface, the lack of annoying ads, and the quality of results. I will continue to do so for as long as I'm convinced that you are not descending to the same profiling practices as the other companies I hate (Amazon comes to mind).
Let's see what happens.
Update: 7/6/07
It's been a while now and there's been no response of any kind. I even posted a similar message in their brand new
public policy blog where they specifically ask for any issues that they should cover. Nothing.
Lacking any information to the contrary (and because I seem to have been purposefully ignored), I am hereby declaring that Google has
no justification for data raping their users. Like most companies, they're actions appear to be purely for profit and all that talk of needing it for "optimization" is marketing spin intentionally used to confuse the issue.
I would have expected far better from a company like Google, but then again, maybe that was too much to hope for.
Update: 7/10/07
It looks like I'm not the only one being ignored. A member of
Public Citizen also contacted Google to see if they would let him know what specific information they stored on him. Dead silence.
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