Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Finding Fault With Google's Privacy Policy

Posted by timothy on from the wonder-what-bill-joy-thinks-of-it dept.

orenh writes "Viacom has recently obtained a court order that requires Google to hand over a complete list of every video watched by YouTube users. These logs will include the login names and IP addresses of the users. Google are now asking Viacom if they can anonymize the logs before turning them over; Viacom hasn't responded yet. But this privacy nightmare could have been greatly reduced if Google had anonymized the data in advance. Google's privacy policy states that they keep personally identifiable information for 18 months. There is no real reason to do so; Google can achieve everything they need even if they anonymize their search logs after just one month, and it's time users told them to do so."

1 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Google Being Evil by Baldur_of_Asgard · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Recent events make me think that Google is no longer keeping its pledge not to be evil.

    Considering turning over information to the Chinese government about dissidents . . . OK, we say, necessary to do business in China.

    But then Google prevented search results for inquisition21.com for a while, a site which brings to light abuses by law enforcement agencies, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom. That was reversed, but now Google appears to be preventing search results bringing up GirlChat, at http://www.annabelleigh.net - another site which those in the government and the media would like shut down.

    That, combined with obvious censorship at Wikipedia of late make me wonder about the fairness of some of these large internet companies, and just how much pressure the US government is illegally putting on them.

    Tie that in with this recent decision, which basically puts into the hands of a private company a compendium of the viewing habits of millions of innocent people, and I am very glad that I have been using a proxy.

    Consider that this information will likely lead at some point to a private or public entity producing "profiles" of the American public, in order to identify potential dissidents - or at least soft targets for scapegoating - to the detriment of the public interest.

    As a member of a minority that is concerned about genocide in the United States (and being the target thereof), this concerns me a great deal.

    This is serious stuff, and Google should no longer be given a free pass.