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The End of Privacy

by Donal 1/30/2012 - 5:15 pm

A few days ago Google announced a new privacy policy: If you're signed into any Google service, the information that Google collects from you can be combined with information from every other Google service to build a gigantic profile of your activities and preferences. On Tuesday I wrote that I was pretty unhappy about this, and a lot of people wanted to know why. After all, Google says this new policy will mean a better computing experience for everyone:

"Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products. Our search box now gives you great answers not just from the web, but your personal stuff too…But there's so much more that Google can do to help you by sharing more of your information with…well, you. We can make search better—figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too. For example, it's January, but maybe you're not a gym person, so fitness ads aren't that useful to you. We can provide reminders that you're going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day."

So what's my problem? Easy. In that mass of good news, the real reason for Google's announcement was stuffed quietly into the middle: "We can provide more relevant ads too."

Read the full article at http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/end-privacy-google

"The End of Privacy" is a bit breathless for a title here.  There is really much ado about nothing.  Google has already been collecting this information across their various services, it's just that now it will be used across services.  It's not actually collecting new information or sharing it with anyone new.  It's just using it across services whereas before it wasn't.

And of course it's to target ads more effectively.  In the age of Google and Facebook, it shouldn't be a mystery to people that these free services are not free.  Facebook is about to go IPO.  Where does its value come from?  It comes from the massive stores of information it has acquired.  That information was the payment for the "free" service that Facebook offers.  Google is no different.

The new rule of the information age is this: Information that you set free on the 'net is no longer "private."  If you're not comfortable with the privacy cost of these services, don't use them.  Sign out of Google.  Disable Web History in your account settings.  Or users can simply elect to pay for services like e-mail if privacy is a major concern.  Regardless, this minor policy change by Google is hardly the end of privacy.

by DF 1/30/2012 - 7:02 pm

 

Google hasn’t been itself lately. What started out as the simplest, fastest, least fussy search engine and best e-mail provider is now trying to expand into this whole Social Media thing it’s heard so much about. As often happens when someone is late to the party, the results are embarrassing. ...
 
But there’s something larger at stake.
 
The Internet, nowadays, is overwhelmingly dominated by fora in which you hang out as your actual self. Facebook. Twitter. And now, Google.
 
But not to get all Proustian on everyone, we are all composed of many selves. And nowhere is that more true than in the things we do online. Perfectly good, upstanding citizens will watch outre trailer and laugh at videos of cats running into walls. There are videos of housecats speaking in tongues that I have watched hundreds of times. And don’t get me started on the music videos. On the Internet, things that we’d turn our noses up at in person go viral because people have a freedom online to be curious without consequence.
 
Show me someone who stands behind his entire browser history, and I will show you a confident liar.
by Donal 1/30/2012 - 7:58 pm

Key sentence from that article:

Google announced Tuesday its plans to integrate data from all its services with your profile for logged-in Google+ users.

Emphasis is mine.

No opt out?  Sure there is: log out.  There's no reason you have to be logged into Google to use their search.  While you do have to log in to use their other services, those services are, as I mentioned above, offered free of monetary cost in exchange for certain information.  People need to be aware that they are conducting such a transaction.

This is a policy change that really only stands to affect Google power users - people who are using Gmail, Maps, Calendar and, increasingly, Google+.  Those users have already yielded all that information to Google.  Google is basically just saying that they're now going to pass that information back and forth between their various algorithms.  In essence, Google is announcing that it's going to share all the information you already gave it amongst itself.  The average user of Google's search engine has nothing to fear.  Provided that you don't use search while logged in or disable your web search history in your account settings (yes, you can do this), there will be no final judgment brought down upon you for your love of weird internet cat videos.

by DF 1/30/2012 - 9:54 pm (re: Donal)

I got an email from Google today, which was strange because I didn't know I had a Google account. 

by Donal 1/30/2012 - 11:32 pm

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