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Google Defends Privacy Policies
adeelarshad82 writes "Google responded to a letter from 10 international privacy commissioners who criticized the company's approach to privacy, insisting that Google protects its customers and has moved quickly to make changes regarding Google Buzz. In a letter to the commissioners, global privacy counsels for Google stated, 'We are committed to being transparent with our users about the information that we collect when they use our products and services, why we collect it, and how we use it to improve their experience.' The April inquiry from the officials included privacy commissioners from Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK."
Given the horrid behavior of Facebook over the last month I'm feeling a lot better about Google. Maybe they're equally sleazy, but at least they don't whack you over the head with their sleaze.
If anything it's Facebook's "We honestly don't give a shit what you think 'cause millions of others won't care what we do as long as they've got Farmville" attitude that annoys me more than the privacy issues.
Three Squirrels
Transparent, as in not visible. Or at least buried deep in license agreements no one reads.
Those who care, will read it. And they'll make a big fuss about it, to which hopefully Google will respond some day...
Google needs your data, just like how you need Google. Search is their core business, after all. What we need to make sure is that those TOS and agreements are not just some legal stuff to make the whiners go away, and it's in their enlightened self-interest to make sure we can verify it. Google is not Microsoft: it won't cost you days of work and months of learning to move away from their products if they piss you off, and they know it.
That said, always keep in mind that for a company like Google, you are not the customer. You are the product.
The privacy nuts are rather like the abortion nuts. Although there are many views only one side pushes forward. Just as we never see gangs of protesters marching for abortion but only against abortion we see only the privacy freaks protesting the supposed evils of free information. Some people seem to only feel safe if they are living totally obscured from the view of all others.
Uh, that's a poor comparison. Most anti-choice (I refuse to label them pro-life, as someone can be pro-life and pro-choice without contradicting themselves) protesters are fighting to outlaw abortion, while "privacy freaks" typically are more concerned with their own privacy (and bitching about the lack thereof). I don't have a Facebook account with any real information, and I try to educate people about privacy, but I'm hardly campaigning to outlaw status updates. I think people should have the right to tell the world when they are taking a shower and what they thought about the Shawshank Redemption. I just think that they should be clearly informed of what is being done with their data and any transfer of the data to a third party should be an opt-in process.
STATUS UPDATES ARE MURDER
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Or do you see another search engine providing as much internal Data as google does? I have yet to see another site like http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/ Sure it's not super detailed but it's a hell of lot better than anything else out there.
.... and none of it is worth losing your privacy or anonymity over it. None of it.
The risks associated with data mining are not as benign as a few corporations forcing relevant ads in front of your face all day. It's a little bit more involved and complex than that. I could go tin-foil-hat on you all day long, but let's just leave it at it's too dangerous to have that much personal information in public. The public loses the best protection it ever had, could had, and will have, its privacy and anonymity.