“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t
be doing it in the first place.”
-- Eric Schmidt
...Wouldn’t it be nice if one day, told that Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information
and make it universally accessible and useful,” we would finally read between the lines and discover
its true meaning: “to monetize all of the world’s information and make it universally inaccessible
and profitable”? ... Letting Google organize all of the world’s information makes as much sense
as letting Halliburton organize all of the world’s oil.
Like any large and successful company Google is a complex organism full of contradictions. It has
tremendous, global positive value as the systematizer of Web knowledge. Google search engine is standard
de-facto in this field. And it keeps the competitors such as Bing honest. Despite competition getting
closer it still have some amazing capabilities. For example it has no equals in finding a source of
a given quote.
It gave us such important innovations as Google Maps with it unique "real view". It enhanced and
sustained YouTube after its acquisition, creating probably the largest archive of video knowledge in
the world. Here quantity turned in quality. And it made some interesting experiment with Google
Voice. While I really do not like Gmail it became that largest such service in the world.
It gave the world several nice web applications such as Google translate, and make important inroads
into smartphone market previously dominated by Apple. And while Android as a smartphone system has well
known drawbacks it is probably one of the most democratic offerings. You can buy decent quality android
smartphone for less then $100 With all its shortcoming and inherent insecurity Android proved
to be more open, more flexible, more democratic smartphone OS.
It also enhanced and sustained the development of Python, one of the most important scripting language
in existence. Actually making it probably the most prominent scripting language and pushing Perl
to the side road.
At the same time it created degree of over-centralization of search and email unheard before. Becoming kind of private
(and we actually do not know how private) Big Brother, just out of capabilities of modern Internet,
enhanced by it share of smartphone market. Please remember that
like Facebook, Google have blanket surveillance as important part of its business model. Frantic
(and failed) attempt to create Google++ demonstrate this pretty clearly.
It's appetitive for data-collection looks unsaturable.
If you think about Google advertizing as a Web activity tracking tool, this is pretty menacing but
is not the whole story. The whole story is much worse. Due to vast net of advertisements Google
essentially collects proxy log of large part of Internet traffic. By tracking activities on many smaller web sites
Google can easily tell what you looked at the Web for the last ten years or
so, even if you never used its search engine. So the fact is that like STASI before (but for slightly different purposes)
Google tracks all your activity on the
Web. If you use Javascript enabled browser, you literally can't hide from Google. When you switch from one computer to another the adds relevant
to your previous activity pop instantly and that is extremely annoying. This ability to track on multiple devices is a pretty dangerous
capability that voids your privacy. And it no longer depends on cookies. It still depends on
Javascript so disabling Javascript or using not a Javascript enabled browser still stops Google
tracking.
Google also relentlessly pushed all activities toward cloud, and against interests of the users.
It was done with the pure goal to make collection of all this information more comprehensive. For
example if you use Gmail, then you web browsing and searching activity can be correlated with your
emails.
And Gmail and Google search (which at least initially was ahead of competition; now less so) were
not enough for Google brass. They tried
to corner users into Google++ and did stupid things with Android (in)security and collection of information
from Android users.
Like Microsoft before, it attracted a lot of "best and brightest" but made many, if not most
of them a well paid deadeners, assigned to tasks in which they are forced to replicate dull
systems just to make Google dominant in yet another area.
Gold age for Google ended with Snowden revelations. Now most users (or at least the most intelligent
part of users ;-) consider it as a great threat to their privacy (Google
data collection worries Americans more than NSA)
Survey participants responded to these questions by choosing a number between one to 10, with one
meaning they would not care and 10 meaning they would be “extremely upset.”
In response to the idea that Google would gain access to their data, the average score was 7.39.
For comparison, the average score regarding the NSA was 7.06.
Meanwhile, in the event that their boss gained access to their data, respondents scored the possibility
with a 6.85. The prospect of the participants' parents snooping on their digital life received a 5.93.
Excessive zeal in collecting user information can undermine any brand name. People don't like relentless
snooping on them, especially keeping records which were not authorized. And that's what happened with
Google. Here is a typical comment (Google
Knows Too Much )
I was mildly shocked today to discover the
Google Dashboard, a summary of
all a Google account's subscribed services and what data each service holds.
I used to be a
staunch privacy advocate, not sharing any info on any third-party service. But I have come to terms
with it being OK to volunteer personal information for a worthwhile service, especially when others
reciprocate. It is OK because I choose what information is shared. During the formative years of the
web, it felt like exposing yourself to post any personal information at all online. Now, post-web-2.0,
it is part of the normal social landscape to share, and actually a hindrance not to, lest you miss
an important and rewarding connection.
On the dashboard, I saw my Gmail account, my Google Contacts address book, my Blogger account, etc.
But of particular interest was the ENTIRE
SEARCH HISTORY. I am also able to see my contacts' contacts aka
Social Circle and Content: Secondary
connections, Google's foray into social-based search.
Seeing all of this info presented on one page is unnerving...
Many people just stopped using Google search engine out of concerns for their privacy. And this essentially
completely contradict state Google policy "do no evil". At the beginning it looked like Google might
be able to provide a foundation for the democratization of search and ease access to information already
stored on the Web. But after they went public they took a sharp turn in the opposite direction entering
the race to generate web based services for rent extraction and to set up an environment – the cloud
– in such a way that people increasingly have to use them. Most of Google web services users were seduced
by convenience, but did not realize that it comes at a huge hidden cost including systematic violations
of privacy. Until recent revelations most people simply were not aware of what is going on, of how deep
and intrusive this invasion of privacy is.
Now Google like any large corporation has two faces. On a positive, constructive side, as we already
mentioned, Google achieved quite a bit. For example Google Maps were a step forward in an important
way. With some real innovation. YouTube provides to be a valuable video repository too, where quantity
turns into quality. Google scholar is weak and inconsistent, but still valuable attempt to provide a
window toward knowledge on the Web. Despite clear proprietary edge, but it is better than many alternatives.
Actually this is one thing were government, especially Library of Congress should step in and take the
leadership.
Google employs a lot of talented peoples, although in many cases it is misusing them forcing then
to reinvent the bicycle (typical for a large corporation misuse of talent). For example, I hate Gmail
and consider it very badly architecture product with horrible, convoluted interface which make simple
things difficult and complex things impossible, but this is just personal antipathy (and I especially
hate attempts to bind it with Google+).
Although to lesser extent then Facebook, Google by the virtue of its business model is another powerful
information collection machine about users. In a way it's more dangerous then Facebook as it wants to
be your sole provider of Internet content and your sole window into Internet via its search engine.
For those people who use Google exclusively, if a site in not in Google it is not exist at all. That's
a dangerous power that we should resists.
And it has insatiable appetite for your personal information. Which means that all your data collected
by Google can easily flow to other parties including, but not limited to, the three letter agencies.
Smart technologies and “big data” supposedly will some day allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated
improvements in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in
highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But there is
also a dangerous trend of “Internet solutionism” in which complex, controversial political
or moral dilemmas are oversimplified and recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of
technological efficiency.
What if some Google services are simply vices in disguise? It can well be that some level of friction
in communications is productive or even necessary and after certain level centralization of services
under one umbrella is invitation to totalitarism. What if some of those imperfections of classical decentralized
Internet that Google tries to remove are actually a good design. Is not “Internet solutionism”
related to
Decisionism
which:
Very closely related to irrationalism is “decisionism” in which action is seen as a value in
itself. This is an existential element in fascism that elevates action over thought. Action is
a sign of unambiguous power, and thought is associated with weakness and indecision. Carl Schmitt,
a Nazi Law constitutional jurist, wrote that a decision is “(an actual historical event) and not
within that of a norm (an ahistoric and transcendent idea).” The a priori is overshadowed by the
posteriori. Actions over abstract principles, Fact over Idea, Power over pure thought, Certainty over
ambiguity are the values and ideological norms that are primary in a totalitarian state.
In a current Snowden NSA revelations inspired debate about the moral consequences of digital technologies,
we stated to realize that seamless integration of services under Google umbrella, where everyone is
forced to wear Google's digital straitjacket can be a bad thing. It essentially invites snooping.
We must fight against this strange "self-exposure" tendency under which people have become enslaved
to and endangered by the tools they use. But there is other aspect of this problem other then unhealthy
self-revelation zeal that large part of Facebook population demonstrates on the Net. It is corruption
of Internet by large Internet Oligopolies such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. As Eugeny Morozov argued
in The
Net Delusion The Dark Side of Internet Freedom “Internet solutionism” exemplified by Google,
is the romantic utopia of our age. He regards Google-style "cloud uber alles" push as counter-productive,
even dangerous:
...Wouldn’t it be nice if one day, told that Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information
and make it universally accessible and useful,” we would finally read between the lines and discover
its true meaning: “to monetize all of the world’s information and make it universally inaccessible
and profitable”? With this act of subversive interpretation, we might eventually hit upon the
greatest emancipatory insight of all: Letting Google organize all of the world’s information makes
as much sense as letting Halliburton organize all of the world’s oil.
The reason why the digital debate feels so empty and toothless is simple: framed as a debate over
“the digital” rather than “the political” and “the economic,” it’s conducted on terms that are already
beneficial to technology companies. Unbeknownst to most of us, the seemingly exceptional nature of
commodities in question – from “information” to “networks” to “the Internet” – is coded into our language.
It’s this hidden exceptionalism that allows Silicon Valley to dismiss its critics as Luddites who,
by opposing “technology,” “information” or “the Internet”-- they don’t do plurals in Silicon Valley,
for the nuance risks overwhelming their brains – must also be opposed to “progress.”
There are many definitions of evil that aren't specific to a time or culture. One such definition
of evil is treating others as a means or impediment to an end instead of ends in themselves.
By this definition, much of what Google (and Facebook, and many others) does for living probably is
evil.
Google's code of conduct is so "broad" that it isn't a code of conduct at all. In this sense Google
can't be accused in violating of "code of conduct", because at least as it is being presented, Google
has no code of conduct, unless "find new ways to make money" is considered to be a new kind of "Randian
ethic". And actually the first ethic requirement for corporations like Google should be "Don't
snoop".
the first ethic requirement for corporations like Google should be "Don't snoop".
Eric Scmidt quote above say it all, if you know who utter it before him (you can Google that ;-).
In other words if you are using Google, you should have no expectations of privacy. But if people you
that they are watched they start restraining themselves. Overall, Edward Snowden’s revelations have
been a tipping point where people have gone from resignation to anger.
On one end, the population is strangled by consumerism and popular goods. And on the other,
it is strangled by an invasive bureaucracy that is reading mail and tapping phone calls. Our writers
shows that this is likely to be a false dichotomy and that some elements of both can be mixed. A regime
can keep people so busy watching TV that they don't have time to know what is going on (and I have
witnessed this) but then censor the internet and block blogs that might distract them from watching
TV.
All data the you sent to Google should be considered public. In other words if you put non-public
data you should be considered stupid. Previously those of us who have been warning the danger of "overexposure"
on "cloud sites" often have been discounted as tinfoil-hat wearing folk. But this delusion abruptly
changed when everybody learned the real facts.
Similarly in no way you should use Google as the only search engine. Never put all eggs in one basket
is good rule in this situation. Diversify and rotate search engine in your browser on a regular basis.
Each search engine has strong and weak points and using several actually helps to understand strong
and weak points by each.
As simple as that.
But again, first of all you should not have any expectations of privacy in Gmail and other Google
services. It's OK for public information. It's good as a repository of advertizing spam, which is side
effect of many registration of products.
And if you have such expectations, then something is probably wrong with you.
In other words by using Google, or android phone, you deliberately put yourselves under
the microscope. And you do not need to be logged in to be tracked. Look how advertisements that
Google show you incorporates your browsing history on other devices despite the fact that you never
was logged to Google. And it does not matter that laptop that you are using was just bought. Something
like "Google identifier" soon associate you and this laptop.
Like in many cases of excessive zeal this is counterproductive and as soon as I noticed that
I stopped paying any attention to Google advertisements. Which probably was not an intended effect ;-).
To understand why try to search some random paragraph from this or other page and see how exact is
the result. That means that your typical pattern of browsing the Web is probably enough to uniquely
identify you.
Now change your computer to a tablet, or cell phone and try some other search in Google. You will
see that ads travel to new pages. They track you across devices and whether you was logged to Goggle
or not does not make any difference. This Google practice should be stopped.
Internet dominated by well-connected elite oligopolies is structurally unable (and unwilling) to
provide true information and knowledge. Internet on which your every move is recorded for five years
or more is a really totalitarian instrument. The dream of KGB and STASI which came true.
"The logical consequence of a commercial media system is less to instill adherence to any ruling
powers that be -- though that can and of course does happen -- than to promote a general belief that
politics is unimportant and there is little hope for organized social change."
"As Milton Friedman put it in his seminal CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM, 'because profit making is the
essence of democracy, and government that pursues antimarket policies is being anti-democratic, not
matter how much informed popular support they might enjoy. Therefore it is best to restrict governments
to the job of protecting private property and enforcing contracts, and to limit political debate to
minor issues.'"
And what is Google's role vis-a-vis government? If corporations and governments collaborate (which
is the essence of corporatism)
what does that mean for society? And how does targeted advertising and the analytics cross and become
nearly identical to national security monitoring goals? What does it mean when countries collect and
share information on each other's citizens bypassing this way their own laws?
And culture is very important. Technology can only be an enabler. Google like intelligence and defense
industries evidence too much technology zeal.
The problem that Google faces is the problem of trust. To that end, the Google connections
to the US government should be open and not perceived as manipulative. Being manipulative can result
in blowback that undermines the trust. People distrust such organizations.
Clint Schnekloth "Clint S." (Fayetteville, AR) -
See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Utopian wish fulfillment by authors who get to create reality, May 20, 2013
Start reading this book, and the breathless descriptions of what will happen in the future will
catch you off guard. This book sounds like two men describing the new digital age as utopia, everything
better and brighter and more beautiful. At first, it's almost relentless. I caught myself saying over
and over, "Yeah, right... like all of this is every going to come true, or be as wonderful as the authors
seems to be arguing it will be."
But then you keep reading. And you realize this isn't wish fulfillment per se (although in a certain
sense all futuristic prognostications are wish fulfillment), but rather an amazing brainstorming session
describing what the future in all likelihood really will look like, envisioned by two authors who know
more about the impact of digital media on geopolitics and culture than almost anyone else.
I'm reminded of that notorious quote by an aide of Karl Rove's. The aide said that guys like [the
reporter interviewing him] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as
people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded
and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other
new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.
We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Well, if anyone is an empire, Google is an empire...
"... In his latest book, Google Archipelago , Rectenwald outlines how this system works, why leftism is synonymous with oppression, and how the Google Archipelago's regime of "simulated reality" "must be countered, not only with real knowledge, but with a metaphysics of truth." ..."
"... Gradually, Rectenwald began to realize that PC was not a philosophy, but the enemy of open inquiry. For this reason, and because Rectenwald is an expert in the so-called digital humanities and the long history of scientific (and pseudo-scientific) thinking that feeds into it, Google Archipelago is not just a dry monograph about a social issue. By turns memoir, Kafkaesque dream sequence, trenchant rebuke of leftist censorship, and intellectual history of woke corporate political correctness, Google Archipelago is a welcoming window into a mind working happily in overdrive. ..."
"... There is much in Google Archipelago addressing the lie that Google, Facebook, and Twitter are neutral platforms for free-ranging debate. This is not so much, because, statistically and empirically, it is irrefutable that Silicon Valley is hostile to non-Beltway-leftist opinions, but because, much more damningly, their woke-capital corporate structures are themselves iterations of massification, propaganda, and deep social control. For Rectenwald, the "Google archipelago" is not PC version 2.0; it is Marxism, version 1,000 (and raised by several orders of magnitude to boot). ..."
It is tempting to see this as a function of political correctness. Americans, and others
around the world, who have found themselves on the "wrong side of history" (as determined by
the cultural elite in an endless cycle of epistemological door closing) have long been shut out
of conversations, their views deemed beyond the pale of acceptable discourse in enlightened
modern societies. Google, Facebook, Twitter -- are these corporations, and their uber-woke
CEOs, just cranking the PC up to eleven and imposing their schoolmarmish proclivities on the
billions of people who want to scrawl messages on their electronic chalkboards?
Not so, says reformed leftist -- and current PC target -- Michael Rectenwald. The truth of
Stanford and Harvard alumni's death grip on global discourse is much more complicated than just
PC run amok. It is not that the Silicon Valley giants are agents of mass surveillance and
censorship (although mass surveillance and censorship are precisely the business they're in).
It's that the very system they have designed is, structurally, the same as the systems of
oppression that blanketed and smothered free expression in so much of the world during the
previous century.
In his latest book, Google Archipelago , Rectenwald outlines how this system
works, why leftism is synonymous with oppression, and how the Google Archipelago's regime of
"simulated reality" "must be countered, not only with real knowledge, but with a metaphysics of
truth."
Google Archipelago is divided into eight chapters and is rooted in both Rectenwald's
encyclopedic knowledge of the history of science and corporate control of culture, as well as
in his own experiences. Before retiring, Rectenwald had been a professor at New York
University, where he was thoroughly entrenched in the PC episteme that squelches real thought
at universities across North America and beyond. Gradually, Rectenwald began to realize that PC
was not a philosophy, but the enemy of open inquiry. For this reason, and because Rectenwald is
an expert in the so-called digital humanities and the long history of scientific (and
pseudo-scientific) thinking that feeds into it, Google Archipelago is not just a dry monograph
about a social issue. By turns memoir, Kafkaesque dream sequence, trenchant rebuke of leftist
censorship, and intellectual history of woke corporate political correctness, Google
Archipelago is a welcoming window into a mind working happily in overdrive.
There is much in Google Archipelago addressing the lie that Google, Facebook, and Twitter
are neutral platforms for free-ranging debate. This is not so much, because, statistically and
empirically, it is irrefutable that Silicon Valley is hostile to non-Beltway-leftist opinions,
but because, much more damningly, their woke-capital corporate structures are themselves
iterations of massification, propaganda, and deep social control. For Rectenwald, the "Google
archipelago" is not PC version 2.0; it is Marxism, version 1,000 (and raised by several orders
of magnitude to boot).
For example, in the first and second chapters of Google Archipelago , Rectenwald lays out
how the various elements of woke-capitalist ideological repression work together in actual
practice. Rectenwald's chief example is the Gillette ad campaign of January 2019, in which a
company whose products (razor blades and shaving cream) are purchased, of course, was said to
insult the very essence of its customers by belittling manhood as "toxic." Why would a razor
blade company go out of its way to alienate the people who buy the majority of razorblades? The
answer is surprising. Rectenwald tells us Gillette was not simply responding to a renewed PC
craze by running the "toxic masculinity" ad. Gillette, from the beginning, has been a pioneer
in designing systems to mold public opinion and shape individuals into easily pliable socialist
masses. King Camp Gillette, the founder of what is now the Gillette company, hated competition
and sought to make, as he put it, a "world corporation." Through this corporation, the ignorant
plebs around the globe could be impelled to do what their social and intellectual superiors --
the leaders of the "world corporation" -- thought was in their best interest. This "singular
monopoly," as Rectenwald puts it, would control the material and mental makeup of the entire
world. Quoting King Camp Gillette's biographer, Rectenwald adds, "It was almost as if Karl Marx
had paused between The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital to develop a dissolving toothbrush
or collapsible comb."
Rectenwald outlines a direct line of descent from this earlier corporate socialism of razor
blades and "collapsible comb[s]" to the "authoritarian leftism" of the present digital age,
authoritarian leftism being "the operational ethos of the Google Archipelago." The Google
Archipelago's "wokeforce" practices what Rectenwald calls "avant-garde identity politics
extremism," the organizing principle for deciding which parts of society are in revolt against
PC and need to be excised from the archipelago of allowed opinion. The internet did create the
"information superhighway," as was endlessly exclaimed by politicians and nascent digitalistas
during the late 1990s. But it also amplified the structures of woke corporate control that had
been in place since the beginning of globalized leftism, Marxian "capitalist" finance, and
elite-led collectivism -- precisely the kind of inversion of free enterprise and perversion of
the free market practiced by King Camp Gillette and his socialist comrades a hundred and more
years before. The Google Archipelago is not a product of the personal computer, but of another
kind of political correctness, the PC that is the manifestation of the same old human urge to
control others and bring the world under the sway of one's will.
Posted on
November 12, 2019 by Yves Smith The Wall Street Journal has
broken an important story on
Google's foray into the medical arena . Without notifying patients or doctors, much the
less obtaining their consent, the search giant has obtained the medical records of "tens of
millions of people" in 21 states, all patients of Ascension, a St. Louis-based chain of 2600
hospitals.
Moreover, you can see that the effort is aggressive, with the aim of generating patient
medical histories, linking individuals to family members, and making staffing and treatment
suggestions .as well as identifying opportunities for upcoding and other ways to milk
patients.
... ... ...
However, Journal readers (at least as far as I read, and I got pretty far
into the hundreds of comments) were without exception very upset about the prospect of Google
having access to their medical data. Given that Big Tech is in the crosshairs of more than a
few Congresscritters, one can hope that Google and Ascension officials will soon have to
'splain themselves.
A few examples:
stuart jenner
NO. I use Google AdWords They provide the data that they need in order to sell us .
No, I don't trust Google with my information. They will set their systems to
disadvantage patients, they will jerk partners around & and they will take away info
people rely on in order to raise their prices -- examples galore.
David Kessinger
Who will Google sell this information to? If they can't sell it in some form they
wouldn't bother with it. Google at it's core has no ethics beyond how to get money –
to heck with who gets hurts.
STEVEN FRANKEL
This is not comforting. Rest assured this most personal information will be accessed by
people you do not want anywhere near your personal information at some time. What would it
take for Google or any other company or government employee to allow unauthorized people to
your information? Probably not very much. And even a subpoena, how tough is that to obtain
with the flimsiest of pretexts, especially with government employees not accountable for
perjury, even to a FISA court? I would not give my doctor any information if it goes into a
computer; I would rather pay cash and have no records other than the ones I would keep on
flash drive.
They are also often designed by relatively small players, so not only are they kludgy, but
they are seldom compatible across health care organizations.
So you can see why there would be demand for a health care information system that is
actually about health care. But given that Ascension has explicit upcoding and upselling
motives, will that really result, or will this just be a less terrible, more portable version
of the current EHRs?
Oh, and if you believe Google, this won't just be about EHRs and helping organizations
like
Ascension pull in more revenues (which translates into making health care an even bigger
percentage of GDP), but bring techno hocus pocus to medicine. We quoted this section
earlier:
Google in this case is using the data in part to design new software, underpinned by
advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, that zeroes in on individual patients
to suggest changes to their care.
Notice that this is vaporware: Google hopes to do all of this but it remains to be seen what
it can do. And it's not clear that even with data on so many patients that it could develop
decent AI for medical purposes. Bias in studies is already a big problem with medical research.
One problem is that some populations are very much under-represented. Women are under-treated
for heart disease in part because doctors see men as being at more risk, which is reinforced by
studied being done mainly on men. Similarly, women have more trouble with hip replacements than
men do because the studies were done on men but women are not small men. They load their hips
differently.
I've seen this movie before. After a lot of legal wrangling, Google will admit they they
might have bent the rules a bit and will have to pay a few billion in fines which they will
proceed to claim back on their next tax form. They will ensure, however, that they do not
admit doing something illegal in court and so no executives will go to the slammer to stop
this happening again. Google will also promise to delete that data.
Meanwhile, a copy of all these files will have gone to a set of their servers in a country
that the US legal system cannot access where it will be analyzed further. Perhaps Google
techs will be able to access it in California on a secured line. Non Disclosure Agreements
will ensure that nobody talks about this work.
You know what will be the next big headline with Google and health services? It will be
the discovery that Google has secretly purchased access to people's DNA from Ancestry or
23andMe and now they will link your DNA with all those health records. Can't tell me that
they are not negotiating for it.
Thanks for that petal. Looks like it is going to be 23andMe and not Ancestry. Want a fun
fact that I have just discovered? And I quote-
Sergey Brin, president of technology and a co-founder of Google is the husband of
23andMe Co-founder Anne Wojcicki. He previously invested around $10 million of his own money
in 23andMe's convertible debt financing, which was converted into Series B preferred stock as
part of 23andMe's Series B round.
Oh yes, was aware of that for quite a while now. The companies have been attached at the
hip from the beginning. Pillow talk? They are no longer together(Brin and Wojcicki). She was
linked with ARod for awhile haha. Interesting group of characters involved.
My one regret was using 23andme, but I have to say it helped me so much it tempers the
fact that I know parts of my "unidentifiable" genome is flying around out there somewhere. I
think using gmail is more of a risk in reality. There is a lot more regulation risk
pertaining to DNA data already on the books. Not saying it would stop them.
I was already degoogled before this Ascension news, but I just told my friends that I will
not email them if they have a gmail address. A total boycott of google from me.
I work in healthcare IT, and I can certainly attest to the fact that insurance companies
are keenly interested in acquiring clinical data. The term of art for this is "chart
chasing", and right now it is pretty much a manual process wherein the patient data is
gathered by insurance company workers or their subcontractors reaching out to medical
facilities for the patient data residing in file cabinets or computers.
It should come as no surprise that healthcare IT companies see a business opportunity in
making this work more efficiently for payers – to suck in data at a rate that is orders
of magnitude faster than currently possible. And you can be certain they are working on this
right now.
What Google may or may be up to with patient data is another issue entirely.
Under HIPAA, a covered entity may acquire access to patient data under a so-called
"purpose of use" that include Treatment, Payment or Operations.
The purpose of the HIPAA Privacy Rule was to introduce restrictions on the allowable
uses and disclosures of protected health information, stipulating when, with whom, and
under what circumstances, health information could be shared. Another important purpose of
the HIPAA Privacy Rule was to give patients access to their health data on request. The
purpose of the HIPAA Security Rule is mainly to ensure electronic health data is
appropriately secured, access to electronic health data is controlled, and an auditable
trail of PHI activity is maintained.
If Google is developing software to analyze data on behalf of Ascension, that's one thing.
They should not have access to the data itself. It's an important distinction. And I don't
trust Google to do the right thing.
As a patient, I would advise anyone who is worried about their data being shared with
third parties to contact their doctor and ask them about their policy with respect to release
of their data. You may find that the facility is releasing your information as they have an
"opt-out" policy. If so, demand that your data not be shared without your explicit
consent.
Google tried their hand at healthcare about 10 years ago with their failed Google Health
project. They staffed the team with people who had no background in healthcare, but were
otherwise the best and the brightest.
Incidentally, Microsoft's Healthvault project only faired somewhat better. MS shutdown the
project this month.
Finally, as someone who has worked in healthcare interoperability I disagree strongly that
digitizing health data has been a one-sided disaster. On the contrary, giving clinicians
access to health information about patients across different settings of care has in fact
improved the quality of care and saved lives. I'm proud of my work in helping make this
happen.
I should also note that making de-identified healtchare data available for
population-based analytics is also a good thing. It's not always about squeezing more $$$ out
of patients.
Thanks for the post. The Affordable Care Act was an IT mess too. Perhaps Obama should have
paid more attention during those meetings with what he called his "propeller heads" instead
of playing with his Blackberry. But Al "streamlining government" Gore comes in for some blame
too. These days we seem to barely regulate anything (except consumers trying to bring in
drugs from overseas).
Some of us used to defend Google around here but that's long gone. Bezos has talked about
trying to get involved in health care as well. Perhaps Google felt they had to beat him to
the punch.
In reality, these auto-delete tools accomplish little for users, even as they generate
positive PR for Google. Experts say that by the time three months rolls around, Google has
already extracted nearly all the potential value from users' data, and from an advertising
standpoint,
data becomes practically worthless when it's more than a few months old . "Anything up to
one month is extremely valuable," says David Dweck, the head of paid search at digital ad firm
WPromote.
"Anything beyond one month, we probably weren't going to target you anyway." Dweck says
that in the digital ad industry, recent activity is essential.
If you start searching on Google for real estate or looking up housing values, for
instance, Google might lump you into a "prospective home buyers" category for advertisers. That
information becomes instantly valuable to realtors, appraisers, and lenders for ad targeting,
and it could remain valuable for a while as other companies, such as painters or appliance
brands, try to follow up on your home buying.
Still, it's unusual for advertisers to target users based on their activity from months
earlier, Dweck says.
the important side effect of dominance in advertizing is a huge surveillance mechanism of Big
Brother type that come with it. Google essentially is able to see what particular individual is
viewing, unless special steps like blocking Google advertizing server IPs, modifying the page of
the fly or disabling Javascript are taken. It does not need access to web server logs, his own
advertizing servers produce logs that are equitant if not better.
Fifty Attorney Generals from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico announced
on Monday that they are launching an anti-trust investigation into Google. This investigation
would be in addition the one that the Justice Department's already conducting. Here's what
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's leading the case, had to say when he made the
announcement on Monday.
KEN PAXTON: This is a company that dominates all aspects of advertising on the internet and
searching on the internet as they dominate the buyer side, the seller side, the auction side
and even the video side with YouTube. And right now, we're looking at advertising, but the
facts will lead to where the facts lead. And even as we speak, been up here about a minute,
there'll be 3.8 million searches and a lot of advertising dollars just made in every minute
that one of these people speaks.
GREG WILPERT: Other major tech companies that have come into the crosshairs of various state
and federal government agencies for anti-trust investigations are Facebook, Apple and Amazon.
According to a New York Times analysis, Google is facing five major investigations,
Facebook eleven, and Apple and Amazon are each facing three. Each area of anti-competitive
behavior is different, depending on the market that each one of these companies dominates.
Joining me now to discuss the wave of anti-trust investigations against Google and other
tech companies is Bill Black. He is a white-collar criminologist, former financial regulator,
and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's
also the author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One . Thanks for
joining us again, Bill.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: So it's interesting that a Republican State Attorney General is taking the
lead on this, Ken Paxton. And that California isn't even a part of the case, along with
Alabama. What's going on here? What's your analysis?
BILL BLACK: Okay, so the reason the state AGs are getting involved in general in lots of
different things, and going all the way back to the runup to the great financial crisis, is
that the United States Department of Justice has basically abandoned cracking down
significantly on elite white-collar crimes in general and anti-trust in particular. Now,
there's an exception -- cartels. They actually are moderately vigorous until the Trump
administration, but in lots of other areas, not so. And so the states felt that the only way
that you could have any effective action was to have the states take the lead. But the states
lack the capacity to take the lead.
They just don't have -- All the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and DC together do not have the
resources in anti-trust, for example, that the federal government has just in its anti-trust
division. And that's not even mentioning the FBI, which does the real investigations, and which
the states have no real counterpart to. And so the only way the states could even try to be
effective was to link together. And they did this in the runup to the great financial crisis
sufficiently, effectively, that the federal government actually sought to block the states from
bringing this action, claiming that it was preempted, so this is continuing that practice.
They weren't able to get California and they weren't able to get Alabama. So they weren't
able to get Alabama on the usual conservative grounds of "why should we sue anybody, the
powerful?" But they weren't able to get California of course in part because the state AG is a
Democrat, and his leading source of contributions, or among his three leading sources of
contributions is Google. And this is one of the real problems with state AGs. They're statewide
races, you have to get elected, and they're expensive races, so you're always seeking political
contributions and such. That, of course, is something that the US Attorney General doesn't have
to do and allows him or her to be more independent.
Then the next question is the states have to face the question always in these kinds of
cases that the federal government doesn't face. And that's "who's going to be in charge?" It's
obviously that the US Attorney General, unless he has to recuse himself, is in charge at the
federal level. But the state level, it's a matter of negotiation. For reasons that pass all
understanding, they put Paxton, one of the absolute most notorious state Attorney Generals in
the United States, in charge. Paxton is trying to raise political contributions on the basis of
this investigation. He sent out an email seeking funds, and I quote "we will continue to fight
for your rights and to protect you from monopolistic practices by liberal elites in DC or in
Silicon Valley." Now here's a hint, Attorney Generals are not supposed to go after liberals or
conservatives or moderates.
That is completely antithetical to the idea of justice, but Paxton is not functioning like
an independent, honest person. He's someone who is intensely politically ambitious, who hates
anybody who he perceives as even moderate -- much less, liberal or progressive and such -- and
he wants to use this investigation as a weapon to go after his political opponents. And on top
of that, get paid off, to get a fine that he can use to tout as a success, and to use that
resources to do the same type of thing in going after other folks. So again, I have no idea why
the state AGs who are Democrats were willing to allow Paxton to take the lead role because it's
going to discredit the entire investigation.
GREG WILPERT: I think that's really interesting to see this kind of battle going on,
essentially within the elite circles of the United States. It's really breaking out into the
open in this case, if that's the real motivation behind -- Well, he said it himself. His real
motivation is to go after the liberal elites, which he sees Google and Facebook as being a part
of. But I want to turn to the actual issue of anti-trust and monopolies. Now, clearly Google
dominates the search market. There's no doubt about that. It's practically the only search
engine anyone uses. However, in advertising, Google is not actually a monopoly, at least if one
looks at its market share by revenues, where it has a 38% share of digital advertising revenues
and Facebook has 22%. Now, give us an idea as to why Google's dominance in search and
advertising should actually perhaps be a concern. Is that concern real? And also, if
advertisers can simply go elsewhere if they feel that Google isn't treating them fairly, why
should their practices in this area be of concern?
BILL BLACK: Okay, so one of the things I teach is anti-trust and such. Monopoly is not the
same thing as monopoly power. When we use the word "monopoly," we typically mean one entity
that controls nearly everything. There are cases, but they're rare in life where there is
actually a monopoly. Long before you have exclusive control over a market, however, you have
some degree of market power. How much is incredibly complex and depends on the inner play. But
one of the things is, say, use your numbers, we have somewhere around 30 to 40% of control
here. We've got a competitor who has 20 and another competitor who has 20. Well then that makes
it pretty easy for the three of us to collude. And we can collude implicitly, right? Just don't
rock the boat. Anybody that really tries to undercut on fees, then we rush in and we match that
and maybe we even cut a little more to show them how vigorous we're going to be. So economists
have long been concerned anytime a company gets even close to the degree of market domination
that you talked about, so it's not silly in the least that they're worried about it.
Now here's the kicker: people may remember Bork and the phrase "to be Borked." Well one of
the reasons he was not approved by the Senate to be a Supreme Court Justice is that he was
leading the right-wing movement to say that essentially we should get rid of anti-trust. In the
specific context of Silicon Valley and any high tech entity in which numbers matter,
penetration matters, the argument from the Right is that there are "network effects." In other
words, when I use my email, it's much more valuable if I can talk to everybody than if I can
just talk to the 10,000 people who have to be subscribers, in the old days, of some particular
email service. And those kind of network effects are fairly common within tech, typically
because of this desire to communicate and to search, in this case, much more broadly. So that
leads to something close to what, in the old days in economics we would refer to as a "natural
monopoly." A natural monopoly just means that there are so many economies of scale, that
whoever gets big actually gets cheaper, and they have a competitive advantage over any rivals
in those circumstances.
But we want the efficiency of that network and the conservatives are unwilling to do a
hybrid, saying, "Okay, we'll have a network that covers everybody, but we'll treat it like a
common carrier, and we'll make sure that the private entity doesn't become the
multi-billionaire because of the profit from these things." So the conservatives want us just
to walk away and let some people become extraordinarily rich and then use their market power,
if they choose, to say "I actually don't want those people spreading their views, so I'm going
to make life difficult for them." So there's also a political rationale, political science
rationale, freedom rationale for saying "you shouldn't let a private company that is not
subject at least to the duties of treating everyone fairly have this kind of monopoly power
position."
GREG WILPERT: I want to dig a little bit deeper exactly on that issue actually. In the past,
major anti-trust cases simply broke up the monopoly; such as, happened with Standard Oil in
1911 and AT&T in 1982. But is that even an option in cases for Facebook and Google? You're
speaking about the network effects and they're obviously quite strong in the case of Facebook
and Google. That is, do we really want a dozen different search engines or a dozen different
baby Facebooks? In other words, wouldn't turning over the company to its users or to some other
-- What would a possible alternative look like instead of breaking it up, or is that the only
solution?
BILL BLACK: I don't think it is the only solution, but it's been the only solution that the
Right has been willing to contemplate and to oppose as well, by the way. Again, their position
is "we should just allow this network to be created and allow private parties to gain
supernormal profits." In economic jargon, that just means a hell of a lot of money. This is why
these people are multi-multi-billionaires, is they control something that has immense monopoly
power, and therefore is able to charge more than they should, and that's inefficient. So the
efficiency condition should be, "Yes, you create the network, but you don't allow a particular
party to become immensely rich from it. You run it instead as essentially a regulated public
utility." That says, "No, you can just get a normal return out of all of this. But yes, we'll
allow a fully efficient network to be created,"
When you treat it like a public utility, then it has traditionally at law, doctrines of
fairness and such that you can't discriminate against the use, that you can't use it as a
weapon against your enemies and such, so you have to take all customers on the same terms
whether they're big customers or little customers and such. Of course, that harks back to an
earlier dispute and one of the first things that the Trump administration sought to eliminate,
was any duty on the part of these private monopolies to treat people fairly. So it's quite
interesting that the Trump administration is now investigating that which it previously
blessed. And of course, the Trump administration has announced that it's going to use the
anti-trust laws as a weapon against their political enemies -- the car companies, for daring to
agree with California to produce fewer greenhouse gases.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah. I just want to return to the issue of this particular case now with Ken
Paxton and Google because obviously, or not obviously, but presumably, he would probably favor
a decision that would actually weaken the power of Google and Facebook by breaking it up, which
I would think the Democratic state Attorney Generals that are behind this case probably
wouldn't necessarily favor. So how are they ever going to come to a resolution in this case, or
is this just going to be tied up in the courts forever?
BILL BLACK: So this issue actually cuts across all kinds of ideological dimensions. You have
the Texas AG, arguably the most conservative state AG in the country, someone who doesn't care
about anti-trust at all, suddenly becoming the great enforcer of antitrust because it's his
political opponents. You've got Democrats who often think that monopoly power has gone too far
going, "Okay, I'll do a deal with the devil -- Paxton -- on this."
But now, and I mean just like today, the Koch Brothers Foundation has gotten involved. And
it's sending out this major effort to get the population to turn against their state AGs
because of this very investigation and the Facebook investigation as well. The Koch brothers
fear that if this precedence gets created, of actually reinvigorating the anti-trust laws, they
could be in the sights of particular Attorney Generals as well. I don't want to say that only
conservative or Republican AGs use these laws against their political opponents because there
have been a series of scandals involving Democrats as well and it's not so much political
there. It's fundraisers. Whoever raises money for them, they help out. You draw the money
largely from plaintiff's lawyers and the plaintiff lawyers would really, really, really love it
if the state AGs would bring an action against the very folks that they too are suing. That
would help their litigation a great deal. So, there are a series of scandals involving
Democrats and Republicans in these Attorney General-type suits.
A recent release of Edward Snowden-provided classified PowerPoint presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) provides a
rather detailed description of how the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand has conspired with the promoters of social media-based revolutions, such as the "Arab Spring", to bring about the
collapse of democratically-elected or otherwise stable governments. However, the PowerPoint slides were partially redacted in key
areas by the dubious censors of First Look Media, financed by e-Bay founder and multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar.
The PowerPoint
slides illustrate how, in November 2011, the NSA; Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE), now Communications Security
Establishment Canada (CSEC), the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) of Australia, now the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD); New
Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) developed
a method for not only monitoring but taking control of cell phone and social media networks used for socio-political uprisings.
The program, known as "Synergizing Network Analysis Tradecraft", was developed by the FIVE EYES's Network Tradecraft Advancement
Team or "NTAT".
... ... ...
The slides show that among the countries where mobile application servers were targeted by the FIVE EYES were France, Cuba, Senegal,
Morocco, Switzerland, Bahamas, and Russia. The information targeted by the Western signals intelligence partners included "geolocation
and network ownership information for each IP address" that consisted of "network owner name, carrier name, ASN (advanced service
network), continent, country, region, city, latitude and longitude, and any other related details". Not of interest to FIVE EYES
were such applications as Google, mobile banking, and iTunes.
A recent release of Edward Snowden-provided classified PowerPoint presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) provides a
rather detailed description of how the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand has conspired with the promoters of social media-based revolutions, such as the "Arab Spring", to bring about the
collapse of democratically-elected or otherwise stable governments. However, the PowerPoint slides were partially redacted in key
areas by the dubious censors of First Look Media, financed by e-Bay founder and multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar.
The PowerPoint
slides illustrate how, in November 2011, the NSA; Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE), now Communications Security
Establishment Canada (CSEC), the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) of Australia, now the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD); New
Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) developed
a method for not only monitoring but taking control of cell phone and social media networks used for socio-political uprisings.
The program, known as "Synergizing Network Analysis Tradecraft", was developed by the FIVE EYES's Network Tradecraft Advancement
Team or "NTAT".
... ... ...
The slides show that among the countries where mobile application servers were targeted by the FIVE EYES were France, Cuba, Senegal,
Morocco, Switzerland, Bahamas, and Russia. The information targeted by the Western signals intelligence partners included "geolocation
and network ownership information for each IP address" that consisted of "network owner name, carrier name, ASN (advanced service
network), continent, country, region, city, latitude and longitude, and any other related details". Not of interest to FIVE EYES
were such applications as Google, mobile banking, and iTunes.
"... Efforts to break into Apple products by government security researchers started as early as 2006, a year before Apple introduced its first iPhone and continued through the launch of the iPad in 2010 and beyond, The Intercept said. ..."
CIA researchers have worked for nearly a decade to break the security protecting Apple (AAPL.O)
phones and tablets, investigative news site The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing documents obtained
from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The report cites top-secret U.S. documents that suggest U.S. government researchers had created
a version of XCode, Apple's software application development tool, to create surveillance backdoors
into programs distributed on Apple's App Store.
The Intercept has in the past published a number of reports from documents released by whistleblower
Snowden. The site's editors include Glenn Greenwald, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in reporting
on Snowden's revelations, and by Oscar-winning documentary maker Laura Poitras.
It said the latest documents, which covered a period from 2006 to 2013, stop short of proving
whether U.S. intelligence researchers had succeeded in breaking Apple's encryption coding, which
secures user data and communications.
Efforts to break into Apple products by government security researchers started as early as
2006, a year before Apple introduced its first iPhone and continued through the launch of the iPad
in 2010 and beyond, The Intercept said.
Breeching Apple security was part of a top-secret program by the U.S. government, aided by British
intelligence researchers, to hack "secure communications products, both foreign and domestic" including
Google Android phones, it said.
Silicon Valley technology companies have in recent months sought to restore trust among consumers
around the world that their products have not become tools for widespread government surveillance
of citizens.
Last September, Apple strengthened encryption methods for data stored on iPhones, saying the changes
meant the company no longer had any way to extract customer data on the devices, even if a government
ordered it to with a search warrant. Silicon Valley rival Google Inc (GOOGL.O)
said shortly afterward that it also planned to increase the use of stronger encryption tools.
Both companies said the moves were aimed at protecting the privacy of users of their products
and that this was partly a response to wide scale U.S. government spying on Internet users revealed
by Snowden in 2013.
An Apple spokesman pointed to public statements by Chief Executive Tim Cook on privacy, but declined
to comment further.
"I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country
to create a backdoor in any of our products or services," Cook wrote in a statement on privacy and
security published last year. "We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will."
Leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed
concern that turning such privacy-enhancing tools into mass market features could prevent governments
from tracking militants planning attacks. The CIA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
My guess is that the company poised to win the most-hated-in-free-tech prize is Google.
Yeah, Google. The company that's popularized two Linux distributions - or at least, two operating
systems using the Linux kernel. The company that's given consumers free use of Docs and Drive,
and which owns and operates the servers where tens of millions of people store their photos and
music - and for free unless they like music too much and need extra storage. Google, which
through its browser gave Linux users the gift of Netflix - something of a trojan gift, to be
sure, but a valuable gift just the same.
Free search, free Android, the free Chrome browser and free Chrome OS.
The trouble is that none of it's free. We just don't pay for it with cash.
Android and Chrome OS are open source, but locked into Google's cloud services with the tightness
of proprietary software. Their combined installed bases have turned free users into sizable
market shares, both for Google's core advertising business and it's burgeoning cloud services.
The company currently controls the smart phone market in a way that would've done the Microsoft
of old proud, and it's cloud services are already pretty much essential to many consumers and
businesses - and that's only going to grow as cloud-based Chrome OS takes increasingly larger
slices of the PC market pie, which it's poised to do.
Chromebooks, of course, dominated the sales of laptops last Christmas, a trend that's sure to
continue as the devices have caught on in education in a way not seen since the days when Apple
owned the academic market. And we're now starting to see Chrome getting a big push on the
desktop, in the all-in-one (AIO) desktop market, with Forbes reporting on Friday on Acer's
release of two AIOs under the name "Acer Chromebase."
"The Google Chromebase comes in two varieties, one with a 10-point 21.5-inch touchscreen
priced at $429 and one with a standard display of the same size that will carry a $329 price tag.
Both will hit retailers this month. Acer also sees these units being used in a variety of
business applications, particularly where space is at a premium.
"The AIOs were originally introduced on April 1, but this is the first time they will be
available to U.S. customers."
There's little doubt that we're going to see many more desktop Chrome machines, and by this time
next year we'll probably be reading stories about Chrome's amazing rise on desktops as well as
laptops. When that happens, when Google's market share on the desktop rises to, say, ten percent,
then we'll know that the Microsoft era has finally ended.
Welcome to the age of Google: brought to you by a company that does amazing good on one hand, and
which is a self serving monopolist on the other. A company that most of us kind of like, but with
very deep reservations.
Google isn't Microsoft and never will be, the difference being that Google truly tries to do the
right thing and follow it's self given mandate to "not do evil." The trouble is, it rationalizes
- which probably can't be helped. At heart, Google is an advertising company, and advertising
people are infamous for believing their own sales pitches.
Mixed in with all of the questionable things Google does are the things it does right, like its
Summer of Code, its fight for Net Neutrality, its awesome support of FOSS projects, and Google
Fiber's bringing of high speed Internet to the masses. And Google will never have the type of
market share on PCs that Microsoft once enjoyed, because desktop Linux is also poised to take a
larger slice of the pie in this age when consumers are no longer afraid to try something other
than Windows.
But as Google's fortunes on the PC rise, it's inevitable that we'll see more anti-Google
sentiment coming from the free tech crowd. While much of that sentiment will be deserved, much of
it will be simply because we love to hate the big shots.
Chromebooks have proven to be incredibly popular devices, with many getting
high star ratings and reviews from customers on Amazon. But a recent report by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation suggests that Google is tracking the Internet browsing of students who use Chromebooks.
I'll share my thoughts about Google's behavior later in this post, but I'll start with what the EFF
had to say and then you can see the response from Google that appeared on its education blog.
The EFF site has details on Google's behavior:
The campaign was created to raise awareness about the privacy risks of school-supplied electronic
devices and software. EFF examined Google's Chromebook and Google Apps for Education (GAFE), a
suite of educational cloud-based software programs used in many schools across the country by
students as young as seven years old.
While Google does not use student data for targeted advertising within a subset of Google sites,
EFF found that Google's "Sync" feature for the Chrome browser is enabled by default on Chromebooks
sold to schools. This allows Google to track, store on its servers, and data mine for non-advertising
purposes, records of every Internet site students visit, every search term they use, the results
they click on, videos they look for and watch on YouTube, and their saved passwords. Google doesn't
first obtain permission from students or their parents and since some schools require students
to use Chromebooks, many parents are unable to prevent Google's data collection.
Google's practices fly in the face of commitments made when it signed the Student Privacy Pledge,
a legally enforceable document whereby companies promise to refrain from collecting, using, or
sharing students' personal information except when needed for legitimate educational purposes
or if parents provide permission.
Google wasted no time in responding to the EFF's report, with a long blog post on its education
site:
On December 1st, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a complaint regarding Google
Apps for Education (GAFE) and other products and services especially Chrome Sync. While we appreciate
the EFF's focus on student data privacy, we are confident that our tools comply with both the
law and our promises, including the Student Privacy Pledge, which we signed earlier this year.
The co-authors of the Student Privacy Pledge, The Future of Privacy Forum and The Software and
Information Industry Association have both criticized EFF's interpretation of the Pledge and their
complaint.
Chrome Sync enables Google Account holders to log into any Chromebook or Chrome browser and
find all their apps, extensions, bookmarks, and frequently visited web pages. For students, this
means that they can get to work, right away. That's one of the reasons Chromebooks have become
so popular in classrooms, especially for schools that can't afford a device for every child. With
Chromebooks and Chrome Sync, students can have a personalized experience on any device they share
with their classmates.
Personally-identifiable Chrome Sync data in GAFE accounts is only used to power features in
Chrome for that person, for example allowing students to access their own browsing data and settings,
securely, across devices. In addition, our systems compile data aggregated from millions of users
of Chrome Sync and, after completely removing information about individual users, we use this
data to holistically improve the services we provide. For example if data shows that millions
of people are visiting a webpage that is broken, that site would be moved lower in the search
results. This is not connected to any specific person nor is it used to analyze student behaviors.
If they choose to, educators, students and administrators can disable Chrome Sync or choose what
information to sync in settings whenever they choose. GAFE users' Chrome Sync data is not used
to target ads to individual students.
I'll let you make up your own mind about Google's response. To me it doesn't carry much weight,
but I've become somewhat cynical regarding Google's motives and behavior over the years. So you'll
have to decide for yourself if the company's explanation trumps the EFF's report.
Google was downloading audio listeners onto computers without consent, say
Chromium users - "We don't know and can't know what this black box does. But we
see reports that the microphone ...
"THE New Digital Age" is a startlingly clear
and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its
leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new
idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom
reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon
Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of
Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and
Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.
The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009,
when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became
excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by
United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could
be a powerful agent of American foreign policy.
The book proselytizes the role of technology
in reshaping the world's people and nations into likenesses of the
world's dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not.
The prose is terse, the argument confident and the wisdom - banal. But
this isn't a book designed to be read. It is a major declaration
designed to foster alliances.
"The New Digital Age" is, beyond anything
else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America's geopolitical
visionary - the one company that can answer the question "Where should
America go?" It is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world's
most famous warmongers has been trotted out to give its stamp of
approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments
give pride of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and
the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden provided advance praise for
the book.
In the book the authors happily take up the
white geek's burden. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical
dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers
in Botswana, anticorruption activists in San Salvador and illiterate
Masai cattle herders in the Serengeti are all obediently summoned to
demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the
informational supply chain of the Western empire.
The authors offer an expertly banalized
version of tomorrow's world: the gadgetry of decades hence is predicted
to be much like what we have right now - only cooler. "Progress" is
driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the
surface of the earth. Already, every day, another million or so
Google-run mobile devices are activated. Google will interpose itself,
and hence the United States government, between the communications of
every human being not in China (naughty China). Commodities just become
more marvelous; young, urban professionals sleep, work and shop with
greater ease and comfort; democracy is insidiously subverted by
technologies of surveillance, and control is enthusiastically rebranded
as "participation"; and our present world order of systematized
domination, intimidation and oppression continues, unmentioned,
unafflicted or only faintly perturbed.
The authors are sour about the Egyptian
triumph of 2011. They dismiss the Egyptian youth witheringly, claiming
that "the mix of activism and arrogance in young people is universal."
Digitally inspired mobs mean revolutions will be "easier to start" but
"harder to finish." Because of the absence of strong leaders, the
result, or so Mr. Kissinger tells the authors, will be coalition
governments that descend into autocracies. They say there will be "no
more springs" (but China is on the ropes).
The authors fantasize about the future of
"well resourced" revolutionary groups. A new "crop of consultants" will
"use data to build and fine-tune a political figure."
"His" speeches (the future isn't all that
different) and writing will be fed "through complex feature-extraction
and trend-analysis software suites" while "mapping his brain function,"
and other "sophisticated diagnostics" will be used to "assess the weak
parts of his political repertoire."
The book mirrors State Department
institutional taboos and obsessions. It avoids meaningful criticism of
Israel and Saudi Arabia. It pretends, quite extraordinarily, that the
Latin American sovereignty movement, which has liberated so many from
United States-backed plutocracies and dictatorships over the last 30
years, never happened. Referring instead to the region's "aging
leaders," the book can't see Latin America for Cuba. And, of course, the
book frets theatrically over Washington's favorite boogeymen: North
Korea and Iran.
Google, which started out as an expression of
independent Californian graduate student culture - a decent, humane and
playful culture - has, as it encountered the big, bad world, thrown its
lot in with traditional Washington power elements, from the State
Department to the National Security Agency.
Despite accounting for an infinitesimal
fraction of violent deaths globally, terrorism is a favorite brand in
United States policy circles. This is a fetish that must also be catered
to, and so "The Future of Terrorism" gets a whole chapter. The future of
terrorism, we learn, is cyberterrorism. A session of indulgent
scaremongering follows, including a breathless disaster-movie scenario,
wherein cyberterrorists take control of American air-traffic control
systems and send planes crashing into buildings, shutting down power
grids and launching nuclear weapons. The authors then tar activists who
engage in digital sit-ins with the same brush.
I have a very different perspective. The
advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death
of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism.
This is the principal thesis in my book, "Cypherpunks." But while Mr.
Schmidt and Mr. Cohen tell us that the death of privacy will aid
governments in "repressive autocracies" in "targeting their citizens,"
they also say governments in "open" democracies will see it as "a gift"
enabling them to "better respond to citizen and customer concerns."
In reality, the erosion of individual privacy in the West and the
attendant centralization of power make abuses inevitable, moving the
"good" societies closer to the "bad" ones.
The section on "repressive autocracies"
describes, disapprovingly, various repressive surveillance measures:
legislation to insert back doors into software to enable spying on
citizens, monitoring of social networks and the collection of
intelligence on entire populations. All of these are already in
widespread use in the United States. In fact, some of those measures -
like the push to require every social-network profile to be linked to a
real name - were spearheaded by Google itself.
THE writing is on the wall, but the authors
cannot see it. They borrow from William Dobson the idea that the media,
in an autocracy, "allows for an opposition press as long as regime
opponents understand where the unspoken limits are." But these
trends are beginning to emerge in the United States. No one doubts the
chilling effects of the investigations into The Associated Press and
Fox's James Rosen. But there has been little analysis of Google's role
in complying with the Rosen subpoena. I have personal experience of
these trends.
The Department of Justice admitted in March
that it was in its third year of a continuing
criminal
investigation of WikiLeaks. Court testimony states that its targets
include "the founders, owners, or managers of WikiLeaks." One alleged
source, Bradley Manning, faces a 12-week trial beginning tomorrow, with
24 prosecution witnesses expected to testify in secret.
This book is a balefully seminal work in which
neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the
titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. "What Lockheed Martin
was to the 20th century," they tell us, "technology and cybersecurity
companies will be to the 21st." Without even understanding how, they
have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell's prophecy. If
you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google
Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces - forever.
Zealots of the cult of consumer technology
will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need
it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the
struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your
enemy.
Julian Assange is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks and author of
"Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet."
Yasha Levine has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his upcoming book,
Surveillance Valley, which will detail the deep ties between supposedly
libertarian, freedom-loving Silicon Valley companies and the national security
apparatus. In truth, these companies are way too cozy with NSA et al, watch us
constantly, are seriously not our friends, engage in seriously sleazy if not
criminal behavior, and more.
Not surprisingly, Levine, an experienced
investigative reporter, has found traditional book publishers show interest at
first, then back off. That's why he's self-funding. I just contributed to his
Kickstarter campaign. If you care about freedom, you should too.
Because what is going on is murky and scary indeed.
I have exposed
Google's deep ties to US intelligence agencies and investigated Google's
role as a global for-profit intelligence agency - an entity that aims to
capture and monetize as much of our activity in the real and online world as
possible. I reported on the murky and criminal world of digital data brokers,
and investigated the detailed dossiers that big tech companies compile on all
of us. I have looked at Silicon Valley's conflicted connections to tech
watchdogs like EFF and privacy activists - people and organizations that are
supposed to be fighting for our interests, not those of global tech. I have
also revealed how the Pentagon and other US intel agencies are heavily involved
in funding grassroots privacy activists and encryption technology - including
just about every privacy tool endorsed by Edward Snowden.
EFF, including Tor, has always been heavily financed by the government. This
should give anyone pause and indeed needs to be investigated in depth. Especially
considering recent revelations show Tor to be not secure.
Blow the lid off the Google-Military Surveillance Complex: It will
investigate Google's close relationship with US National Security State.
Explore the Silicon Valley arms race: It will look at how other Silicon
Valley companies - Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Microsoft - are in a race to
dominate the lucrative military and intelligence contracting market.
Detail exactly what Silicon Valley knows about us: Companies like Google and
Facebook aggressively mine user data to compile complex and detailed dossiers.
Examine how Internet giants make money off invading our privacy:
Reveal how Silicon Valley polices our lives: There is a common misconception
that no matter how much Silicon Valley companies spy on us, at least they don't
have the power to arrest and jail us. Truth is, they can and do.
Karen Knapton reports at The Telegraph that according to a study at Yale University, because
they have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, search engines like Google or Yahoo make
people think they are smarter than they actually are giving people a 'widely inaccurate' view
of their own intelligence that can lead to over-confidence when making decisions. In a series
of experiments, participants who had searched for information on the internet believed they were
far more knowledgeable about a subject that those who had learned by normal routes, such as reading
a book or talking to a tutor. Internet users also believed their brains were sharper….
####
This is none more obvious that in the retarded comments you read in the Pork Pie News Networks.
It is one thing to look up a 'fact', but to understand it within context, its limitations and
not stretch it way beyond reasonable interpretations to fit your argument takes it in to altogether
different territory.
I think the good news is that as the Internet is still quite young and people are learning
that a) the first answer you find may not be true; b) it helps to do more research if you could
be bothered. It's not hard to differentiate between the political bs'ers and the properly
curious.
The best thing I think is that we are also learning to ask the right questions in the right
way. Most of us can now spot obfuscation through deliberately complicated answers (as is technique
often used by people who think they are clever) and are starting to spot what isn't there, or
what isn't said simply through logic and following the process or the steps that should lead to
a logical conclusion. If that is not done, followed or points to some other conclusion, then the
red flags (I don't mean communist ones!) should go up that something is not quite kosher and should
be treated with care. Still, it's early days.
People are brainwashed from birth to believe that knowledge of facts is the same as intelligence.
I have seen this trope in numerous TV shows and movies. It is total rubbish. People spend
years at university and in post-doctoral studies engaged in problem solving. No amount of Google
searches is going to teach internet Einsteins that skill.
I can't be as pessimistic as you. Yes, brainwashing does start very early, but this is just
the beginning of a brave new world (if we don't become nuclear toast first) and the new industrial
revolution has only just started. The field is wide open and old actors will be turfed out or
overturned by the new and hungry.
If the turdification of higher education continues in certain countries, then those countries
are simply hollowing out themselves from the inside. They simply will not be able to find sufficient
numbers of competent people to maintain what they have.
It is one of the many reasons that I am for free education and unlimited free (or at least
heavily subsidized) return to education and retraining until you pop your clogs. In fact, I think
it is essential if we are going to live longer and more productive lives. If the state (us) fund
it, then we all benefit from it over the long term. So far Western countries have been able to
attract some of the best foreign talent from other countries and benefit from it, but the rest
of the world is catching up fast.
In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a
dozen media companies about hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap
a link to go to an external site.
The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable
consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site
to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have
done on the web.
And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on
the site commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic
- a factor that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more
slowly than their competitors', and over time readers might avoid those sites.
Last week, I came across an incredibly important article from the New York Times, which
described Facebook's plan to provide direct access to other websites' content in exchange for some
sort of advertising partnership. The implications of this are so huge that at this point I have far
more questions than answers.
With 1.4 billion users, the social media site has become a vital source of traffic for
publishers looking to reach an increasingly fragmented audience glued to smartphones. In recent
months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a dozen media companies about
hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap a link to go to an external
site.
Such a plan would represent a leap of faith for news organizations accustomed to keeping
their readers within their own ecosystems, as well as accumulating valuable data on them. Facebook
has been trying to allay their fears, according to several of the people briefed on the talks,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were bound by nondisclosure agreements.
Facebook intends to begin testing the new format in the next several months, according
to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The initial partners are expected to
be The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic, although others may be added since discussions
are continuing. The Times and Facebook are moving closer to a firm deal, one person said.
Facebook has said publicly that it wants to make the experience of consuming content online
more seamless. News articles on Facebook are currently linked to the publisher's own website,
and open in a web browser, typically taking about eight seconds to load. Facebook thinks that
this is too much time, especially on a mobile device, and that when it comes to catching the roving
eyeballs of readers, milliseconds matter.
The Huffington Post and the business and economics website Quartz were also approached.
Both also declined to discuss their involvement.
Facebook declined to comment on its specific discussions with publishers. But the company
noted that it had provided features to help publishers get better traction on Facebook, including
tools unveiled in December that let them target their articles to specific groups of Facebook
users, such as young women living in New York who like to travel.
The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable
consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site
to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have
done on the web.
And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on the site
commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic - a factor
that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more slowly than
their competitors', and over time readers might avoid those sites.
And just as Facebook has changed its news feed to automatically play videos hosted
directly on the site, giving them an advantage compared with videos hosted on YouTube, it could
change the feed to give priority to articles hosted directly on its site.
Let me try to address this the best I can from several different angles. First off, what's
the big picture plan here? As the number two ranked website in the world with 1.4 billion
users, Facebook itself is already something like an alternative internet where a disturbing number
of individuals spend a disproportionate amount of their time. The only thing that seems to make many
of its users click away is content hosted on other people's websites linked to from Facebook users.
Other than this outside content, many FB users might never leave the site.
While this is scary to someone like me, to Facebook it is an abomination. The company doesn't
want people to leave their site ever - for any reason. Hence the aggressive push to carry outside
news content, and create a better positioned alternative web centrally controlled by it.
This is a huge power play move.
Second, the New York Times righty asks the question concerning what will publishers get
from Facebook for allowing their content to appear on the site seamlessly. Some sort of revenue share
from advertisers seems to be an obvious angle, but perhaps there's more.
While Facebook isn't a huge traffic driver for
Liberty Blitzkrieg, it isn't totally
irrelevant either. For example, FB provided about 3% of the site's traffic over the past 12 months.
This is despite the fact that LBK doesn't even have a Facebook page, and I've never shared a link
through it. Even more impressive, Facebook drove more traffic to LBK over the same time period than
Twitter, and I am very active on that platform. So I can only imagine how important FB is to website
editors who actually use it.
This brings me to a key point about leverage. It seems to me that Facebook has
all the leverage in negotiations with content providers. If you're a news website that refuses to
join in this program, over time you might see your traffic evaporate compared to your competitors
whose content will load seamlessly and be promoted by the FB algorithm. If a large percentage of
your traffic is being generated by Facebook, can you really afford to lose this?
One thing that FB might be willing to offer publishers in return other than advertising dollars,
is increased access to their fan base. For example, when I try to figure out through Google analytics
who specifically (or what page) on Facebook is sharing my work, I can't easily do so. Clearly this
information could prove very useful for networking purposes and could be quite valuable.
Looking for some additional insight and words of wisdom, I asked the smartest tech/internet person
I know for his opinion. It was more optimistic than I thought:
This could be a huge shaper of news on the internet. or it could turn out to be nothing.
Other than saying that I don't really know how to predict what might or might not happen,
and I sort of don't care much because it is in the realm (for now at least) of stuff that I don't
read (mainstream news), on a site that I never see (Facebook). However, the one thing I wonder
in terms of the viability of this is whether in the end it may drive people away from FB.
Back in the day, probably when you weren't so aware of the nascent net, there were two
giant "services" on the Internet called Compuserve and America Online. They were each what you
are thinking that Facebook is heading toward; exclusive, centralized portals to the whole net.
They were also giant and successful at the time. Then people outside of them started doing things
that were so much more creative and interesting. At the same time, in order to make everything
fit inside their proprietary boxes and categories, they were making everything ever more standardized
and boring. Then they just abruptly died.
Given the enormity of what Facebook is trying to achieve, I have some obvious concerns. First,
since all of the leverage seems to reside with Facebook, I fear they are likely to get the better
part of any deal by wide margin. Second, if they succeed in this push, this single company's
ability to control access to news and what is trending and deemed important by a huge section of
humanity will be extraordinary.
balolalo
I think this shows how desperate both parties are. The MSM is dying. Facebook has plateued. However
the risk is great to both parties. What happens when users hijack the message? And how do they
control feedback? I think this will shoot both of them in the foot in the end. BLOWBACK BITCHEZ.
Macchendra
Do you see any of your code on Facebook?
Did I use any of your code?
What? Match.com for Harvard guys?
You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this.
If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.
Macchendra
And honestly, the "goy" version of this, classmates.com, had been around for ages stinking
up your spam folder. Thank God the MBAs didn't win this battle. They would have monetized it to
death. And YOUR opinion has benefited. YOU have been given a voice.
Yes, this is all about control of the 'message'. They are loosing control, this is one option
they've chosen and they'll attempt to vilify any and all alternate sources.
Imagine FaceFuck controlling all the information delivered to the sheep on say ….hmmm, Russia
for example.
doctor10
"they" have lost control of the narrative. Can't even get a good game of cowboys and indians
going anywhere in the world any longer.
When despite all their insane raving about him, even Putin comes off looking more of a statesman
than anybody in the West, its obvious the stories no longer hold together into a believable story
Burt Gummer
I'm gonna twitter this shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBCUCJNWimo
Paveway IV
"...With 1.4 billion users..."
Yeah, and I account for a dozen of those. I can't remember the username or password or email account that I made up the last time I was forced to use it so I just make up another one. Which I promptly forget again because I never use it.
When you hear your teenage kids say, "Facebook?? Facebook SUCKS" you know it's over for them.
MSM want's to funnel their feces through FB? Hey - I'm all for it. More power to them. I would rather have ALL the knuckle-draggers self-confined to their own little cage somewhere on the periphery of the internet than wandering around loose and showing up on worthwhile sites. Like I would ever even bother to make up yet another fake account on Facebook to read somethign like the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bussiness Insider, etc., etc., etc.
bag holder
This sounds exactly like America Online back in the 90s. They tried to create their own
self-contained Internet, too. It didn't exactly end well.
in4mayshun
Half the people I know already ditched FB for Instagram. The other half were smart enough
never to join FB..
Nowadays, privacy does not hold much value when it comes to the privacy of our data on our digital
devices or on the internet. In the past few weeks, we learned that everyone who tries to maintain
privacy on the net is under suspicion which is all the more reason to try to keep our data, contacts,
communications, and whereabouts on the internet anonymous and hidden from prying eyes as much as
possible. This holds true even more for people that are more exposed like human rights activists,
journalists, lawyers, and even doctors. Some of the distributions that try to assist us with this
build on the Tor network.
One of these distributions is Tails, based on Debian Testing. It had a formidable boost when
whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, that he used Tails to stay anonymous. The latest release
is Tails 1.1 which was released on July 22. We are going to show you how to set it up on a device
like a USB memory stick or a SD card. The term 'installing' is used by the Tails project in this
context, but technically this is only partially correct. The easiest way of using Tails is to just
copy the bootable image to the device using the linux command dd as opposed to real installations
to USB devices. If you want a read-only device for anonymously surfing the internet, that will suffice.
If you need a setup that you can also write to and save your work on, the setup is a little bit more
complicated, as the Tails installer only works from inside Tails.
The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if
they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour
legislation does not protect citizen's data.
The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner
Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent
to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape.
"You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one," Schima told attorney general
Yves Bot in a hearing of the case at the European court of justice in Luxembourg.
... ... ...
Schrems maintains that companies operating inside the EU should not be allowed to transfer data
to the US under Safe Harbour protections – which state that US data protection rules are adequate
if information is passed by companies on a "self-certify" basis – because the US no longer qualifies
for such a status.
The case argues that the US government's Prism data collection programme, revealed by Edward
Snowden in the NSA files, which sees EU citizens' data held by US companies passed on to US intelligence
agencies, breaches the EU's Data Protection Directive "adequacy" standard for privacy protection,
meaning that the Safe Harbour framework no longer applies.
Poland and a few other member states as well as advocacy group Digital Rights Ireland joined Schrems
in arguing that the Safe Harbour framework cannot ensure the protection of EU citizens' data and
therefore is in violation of the two articles of the Data Protection Directive.
The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts
if they want to keep information private from US security services…
i 'deactivated' my facebook account a few years ago, and asked to have my account permanently
removed, but facebook won't even respond to my repeated requests.
Loquito 27 Mar 2015 20:16
Facebook is the ultimate expression of the infantile, shallow and narcissistic approach
a lot of people take to their lives nowadays. People who like to be watched and spied. People
who thoroughly enjoy being stupid.
Raytrek 27 Mar 2015 19:53
I want to be spied on, the spies may learn a thing or two.
Joseph Jessup 27 Mar 2015 19:48
The EU is just a vassal for the US anyway, not sure why everybody is complaining here. The
EU is pretty much controlled by the US in all aspects. "If the US says Bark, roll over", the EU
does it faithfully, and demonstrates it daily in every sphere of foreign and domestic policy.
EU citizens have no right to complain until they start showing a little pride and independence,
because now, it is is just a marionette.
CaptCrash -> BlancoDiabloMagico 27 Mar 2015 19:36
Oh... I filled in a form to close the account, with a reason of "duplicate account". Gone within
48 hours I think.
Zooni_Bubba 27 Mar 2015 19:16
This is the most of course story ever. The US government is breaking all sorts of laws, why
would anyone put their information under in their domain. People should also not use any US based
software products or email servers.
It is illegal to look through someones mail and therefore should be illegal to look through
email, phone records, cookies etc.
GiovannidiPietro0714 27 Mar 2015 19:09
Leave Facebook . . .
more like leave planet earth, right?
That "Collect it All", "Process it All", "Exploit it All", "Partner it All", "Sniff it
All" (tm) mindset, which by the way was started by U.S. IT companies, won't ever be abandoned
by "freedom-loving" politicians and police.
there is a story from a few years ago stating a cia agent helped fund facebook
ChristopherPrice Bob Howie 27 Mar 2015 16:23
There's a difference between secrecy and privacy. Having "nothing to hide" is good (which
means you are likely a non-secretive, law abiding citizen), and it goes under the category of
being transparent with regards to the rule of law. However, your ethical right to privacy is
an entirely different discussion. Would you mind if the gov authorities placed a camera inside
of your home and took pictures of your unclothed wife?
robertthebruce2014 27 Mar 2015 13:56
The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the
most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that
private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the
enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.
State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or
insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention
may take the form of control, assistance or direct management
.
(Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, pp. 135 / 136)
egbertnosausage -> SusanTorveldtt 27 Mar 2015 13:51
You're being spied upon all the time.
Turn off location services and use on an as needed basis then turn off again.
You're phone is a walking microphone telling companies like Google where you go and who you
meet.
Dunnyveg 27 Mar 2015 12:50
Europeans should be just as concerned with keeping their private information away from
EU authorities. Both Washington and Brussels are controlled by the same liberals who have
declared war on their own citizens.
Alan Tasman 27 Mar 2015 12:20
I agree with this assessment 100%
Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb fucks" for
trusting him with their data, published IM (Instant Message) transcripts show. Zuckerberg has
since admitted he made the comments.
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider,
which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for
this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
leveut2 27 Mar 2015 12:04
This is almost funny. More correctly put: "EU citizens that they should close their
Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private".
Facebook's business plan is:
get people to put as much as their personal information as possible on Facebook,
figure out out to screw them over but good using that personal information, and
screw them over but good.
By putting your information on Facebook you lose any right to complain about snooping by
anyone.
uzzername 27 Mar 2015 10:48
Why don't the EU make Facebook put its server farms for European users within the territory
of EU.
This way traffic from EU citizens won't leave its borders.
Kelly Trujillo 27 Mar 2015 10:48
So European nations have figured out that they don't want to be part of the U.S.
nazification of the whole world. How long before the so called American "intellectual
property" companies like Facebook become irrelevant?
BaffledFromBalham -> SirDemilo Brewer 27 Mar 2015 09:02
Who cares if FB is spying on you; if you don't have anything to hide what's the problem?
What if you do have something to hide? What if you were a member of some protest group in your
student youth but now wanted to go on holiday to the US ... maybe you might want not want the
US government to see all of your old posts of "down with this sort of thing" in case they got
touchy and banned you from entering the country.
BaffledFromBalham -> Mike Kelligan 27 Mar 2015 08:52
just look at the contract and what it stipulates
It's not just what's in the contract; the NSA were using the data sent over the wire to by
these apps.
BaffledFromBalham -> amberjack 27 Mar 2015 08:48
If the spooks can just suck your data out of the wires, it doesn't really matter which
social network you're on.
Indeed, that's why GCHQ were tapping into the undersea internet cables. I guess the only
defence then is https.
ID8246338 27 Mar 2015 08:40
One would have to be very stupid to think that any on-line communication is 'safe' or
'private' unless one takes specific steps.
Security has been a concern since the internet started to develop. From the beginning hackers
were beavering away to find ways of accessing government systems - many of them very
successfully. Many of them became employees of the governments who they were once hacking.
Combine this with the resources available to governments around the world nowadays and the
cooperation of social media giants and other providers and its not hard to understand the
risks one takes by using the internet.
Although we may think that we are doing nothing that the authorities would be interested in,
the fact is that those authorities like data. They can analyse it and do all kinds of
projections and discover trends in society which may be a threat to their power. That is the
reason - not as much of that analysis is related to crime as they say it is.
Its common sense not to put anything on the internet you do not want others to see - no matter
how private you think it is.
Wharfat9 27 Mar 2015 08:05
The idea of spying, snooping, entering into ... is rather against the idea of ´private´. Of
course, if a phenotype puts a photo of self, 3/4´s naked, and then starts to blab his/her
intimacies ... considering the platform, he/she has somewhat unlatched the locks, cut the
barbed wire and otherwise ´invited the world on in.´
We are, aren´t we? .. pretty exhibitionist creatures.
Where we want to ´be seen´ ´heard´ ... offers the silly putty of our little ego´s up for those
who want to snoop.
The people at Bluffdale, NSA, FBI, CIA have never had it so good. The kind of data
collection they get as freebie, swooping it up by the ton - from willing bedmates throughout
the social networks - is the kind of data collection they could only have dreamed of .. if
Hoxha could have had this, Albania might be poised to take on the world!
What happens if there comes a day when we just simply turn these things off? What would be
gained? What would be lost? The ´puter .. as someone in the U.S. said to me, "can´t live with
´em, can´t live without ´em." Is that really the way it is?
There is lingering curiosity, too: why in the world do governments want to snoop so badly?
Beyond simple, grade ´b´ perversity, what is it? The United States, my country, has had as
close to zero-success in snooping as has any country in the world, free, unfree, or oblong.
What´s the deal?
.. millions of bucks, snooping .. failure after failure .. what´s the deal?
Everything that could have gone wrong vis-a-vis terrorism, has.
Maybe U.S. officials want to talk about the ´ones they thwarted.´
"Oh, if only you knew!"
.. that, children, would require a leap of faith that he who writes here is not willing to
take-make.
Reading the great Malinowski, his investigation of the Trobriand Islanders, one notes a
complete, integral society, at work, at play, celebrating, mourning, living. Less than a
hundred years ago. The stunning clarity of his writing portrays an integral society. If the
society is whole, the community - as sub-strata, is whole, as well. Or, at least, can be ...
One can´t get over the fact that the ones who took the flying lessons before whacking the
WTC´s (if this is really how it went) went into small town ´flying schools´ .. being very
foreign, and .. ? .. ! .. and, the terrible serial killer who lived next door, ´was such a
quiet boy.´
If we have lost it, the integrity, the integral part .. the rest is left-overs, bits ´n
pieces, bacon bits, halal. And spying is the least of us. Lord help us.
david wright 27 Mar 2015 05:33
The 'right to be forgotten' legislation, however well-mening, was drafted in fairly
complete ignorance of various technical realities. It provides very litle - if any -
meaningful protection, beyond a comforting illusion. Would you care to be protected in
shipwreck by an illusory life-jacket? Thought not.
General point being that absent accurate, timely and clear technical briefing of lawyers and
parliamentary draughters, such laws will be effective purely by chance.
Dave Butler 27 Mar 2015 05:05
As a UK citizen who is already spied on more than any other country in the world what can
the Americans find out that GCHQ , the thousands of camera's and the tracking of my phone,
plus following my fancy new bank cards purchases is not already in the public domain.
Of course if you have something worth hiding you may feel different......
dralion 27 Mar 2015 04:54
Never joined, it or any other of the anti social networks.
Still can't understand this need to spread its life all over the net to thousands of so called
friends. Croaks (as opposed to tweets) are reliable news for many and decision are based on
rumours, false information...
There is no need for any of this. People are no more than cattle for those companies, milked
out of their money, their time, their liberty of thinking; drone consumers...
ID3547814 -> Khoryos 27 Mar 2015 04:51
Not even FB deleting your account removes everything, from that FB help page;
"Some of the things you do on Facebook aren't stored in your account. For example, a friend
may still have messages from you even after you delete your account. That information remains
after you delete your account."
This means some incriminating posts you may have made will be stored on your FB friends
accounts. Better still, you'll need to get all your friends to make a request to delete their
FB accounts too, and their friends as well. Ad infinitum until the only account still using FB
is Mark Zuckerburg's.
Денис Панкратов -> Khoryos 27 Mar 2015 04:44
Unfortunately, this is not quite true. By these actions, you can close your page for users,
but not for US intelligence. But if you do not intelligence agent, not a politician, not a
businessman, but simply communicate on the network, no need to worry. Special services are not
interested in you. By the way, not only the "Facebook" is watching you. It is actively engaged
in "Google", almost all social networks, file sharing, porn sites and sites for storing files.
The principle is the same: you want to keep confidential information, do not spread it to
the network.
amberjack -> BaffledFromBalham 27 Mar 2015 03:54
Would you really trust a social media site set up by a governing organisation? Surely it
would be way too tempting for them to fit backdoors for EuroPol to log in and search through
all data, public and private.
That could be addressed by using a free open-source product like Diaspora. If everyone can
see the code, back doors are easily detected and publicised. And it's a distributed system, so
if you're really paranoid, you can install it on your own server and operate it on a
peer-to-peer (pod to pod, in Diaspora jargon) basis.
The drawback is, of course, that as sdkeller72 and others have pointed out, once the
information is transmitted between different pods/countries, it becomes vulnerable to third
parties. If the spooks can just suck your data out of the wires, it doesn't really matter
which social network you're on.
If you just don't like Facebook using your private information to pump you full of ads,
though, a distributed, democratic system like Diaspora is the way to go.
monostatos 27 Mar 2015 03:44
has anyone found a way to delete a FB account in the real sense of 'delete' and not just
abandon. I couldnt find a definitive answer in the comments. The offcial procedure on FB has
very little effect on your data.
Its probably best to assume that anything ever uploaded to FB will exist forever right?
So the EU is urging people to close their Facebook accounts if they are concerned with
possible privacy breaches. Sounds reasonable enough. I agree.
There's just one gotcha. Currently, it seems, there is NO way to actually close your Facebook
account. You can deactivate it, but that doesn't actually delete it. All deactivating does is
makes your account invisible; all your data is still there.
The closest you can get is to delete every last bit of data in your Facebook account -- and
that means sitting there and deleting perhaps years worth of posts to your wall and the like,
contacts, and any other services you have used on Facebook. The deactivate it and hope you and
no one else trips over it in the future.
If there is anything the EU could demand, it would be to require that FB provide a means to
truly delete an account. I mean, it is ridiculous that this is not available, given that this
is doable on virtually every other site on the web. Not just ridiculous, outright lazy and
irresponsible.
ramacaida58 27 Mar 2015 02:49
Are people naive?
"Face Book" National security project made by National security agencies.
We all applauded well done you clever boy how did you come out with such clever ideas.
But this is democracy we do have the choice to "shut it down or keep it open". We, who are
the peaceful ordinary citizens of this word. Have nothing to worry about. May be even it is
good for our security. At the end most of us we have nothing to hide.
orag -> Cumming madeiranlotuseater 27 Mar 2015 02:48
No, Facebook is where people post news that the mainstream media are reluctant to publish.
It was the first place, for example, where people were extensively warning about NHS
privatisation, or about the terrible effects of benefit sanctions.
It's also great for finding links to really interesting science sites, or culture that you may
be interest ted in.
argonauta -> madeiranlotuseater 27 Mar 2015 02:46
My dog has 12 friends on FB. She's popular among my friends. I have no FB but my dog loves
me anyway. And I love her friends, because the friends of my dog are my friends, chiefly when
they were my friends in the first place. It's a win-win-woof situation
Brian -> Haughan Ellenrocr 27 Mar 2015 02:44
We all need to use an instant messaging solution like Cribble where messages can only be
decrypted by the intended recipient. That way it doesn't matter where the servers are located
because the governments can't read your messages anyway.
John MacKenzie -> tempodulu 27 Mar 2015 02:43
One of Edward Snowdons revelations was never to use Dropbox, ever. Continously
monitored apparently.
John MacKenzie 27 Mar 2015 02:40
Can I suggest that, if you want your privacy protected, download Ghostery and ZenMate.
Ghostery blocks 'trackers,' essentially online ads and tracking apps that run in the
background mining data. For example, at the moment, on the Guardian site, Ghostery is blocking
the following -
Audience Science
Criteo (ads)
Double Click (ads)
Facebook Social Graph
Google Ads
Krux Digital (ads)
Net Ratings (analytics)
Outbrain (tracker)
Scorecard Research
Zenmate is a VPN.
Ghostery does make the internet so much better as the pages load faster. They don't need to
load ads and trackers all the time.
In reality the state took an active role in creating such companies as Google and Facebook.
So I would not call their excessive zeal for surveillance of the users accidental. Quote: "Headlines
have always been composed to grab attention, but now they can gather intelligence too. Your decision
to click-and even the amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece of data for which the
advertiser will pay good money.
As Silverman describes it, the urge to gather endless data about all of us-from our spending habits
to the pace of our heartbeats-is a huge, lucrative industry, driven by the fantasy that correlation
is causation, that because you did X activity, you'll buy Y product."
Your decision to click-and even the
amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece of data for which the advertiser will pay
good money.
What are we prepared to give up in the name of convenience? Throughout
Jacob Silverman's capacious study of the
world we're in and the world we're making-or rather, allowing tech companies to make for us-it's
demonstrated repeatedly that billions of us are happy to surrender our privacy to save a few keystrokes.
Why not log in to that other website with your Facebook or Twitter or Google ID? Why not use your
real identity and photograph, with a record of your movements, all across the web? You have it on
Google's word that they're not
"evil"; what could be the harm?
Silverman's new book, Terms of
Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection, does a thorough, if sometimes
long-winded, job of explaining what the harm is and what it could become. He begins with an analysis
of the philosophy, variously termed "techno-utopianism"
or "cyber-libertarianism,"
that drives the major social media companies. The ideology should be familiar in essence, if not
in name-we've been soaking in it for the past decade. Media theorists, long before the advent of
Facebook, were calling it "the
Californian ideology." It's what happens when youthful rebelliousness and a countercultural,
anti-authoritarian spirit meets gobs of cash and untrammeled power. It's the myth-tirelessly peddled
by optimistic tech, business and culture reporters and embraced by the customers who line up for
new gadgets-that a corporation that calls its headquarters a "campus" and equips its offices with
slides, snacks and free daycare is something other than a capitalist entity, with motives other than
profit.
To be fair, the big tech companies-Google and Facebook are the stars here, with Twitter, Tumblr
and LinkedIn singing backup - do have goals beyond their bottom line. They want to do the kinds of
things that beauty-pageant contestants want to do: cure diseases, end terrorism,
go to the moon. They share a disdain for government
- Mark Zuckerberg is committed to the idea of "companies
over countries" - but also share a zeal for surveillance.
For Silverman, the harm of social media is both specific and philosophical. It turns journalism
into a clickbait race, for instance, but it also radically changes our concepts of privacy and identity.
He considers the fate of those who are chewed up and spat out by the Internet's nano-fame cycle (nobody
gets 15 minutes anymore), whose embarrassing or self-aggrandizing antics, captured on video, do the
rounds and attract a quick, overwhelming torrent of derision or rage. But while we might shrug our
shoulders at the fate of an
Antoine Dodson
or a Taylor
Chapman (respectively a viral hero and villain), Silverman argues that we should be aware of
the numbing and alienating consequences of the viral instinct. Not only does it frequently make clowns
of those who are seriously disadvantaged, and destroy reputations and careers, it also molds
the larger media world in its own image. Hate-watching a two-minute video of a reality show
contestant's racist rant is a sign that you'll give attention to this kind of content-and the site
that hosts the video, beholden to its advertisers, traffics in your attention, not your intelligence
or humanity.
Headlines have always been composed to grab attention, but now they can gather intelligence
too. Your decision to click - and even the amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece
of data for which the advertiser
will pay good money. As Silverman describes it, the urge to gather endless data about all of
us - from our spending habits to the pace of our heartbeats - is a huge, lucrative industry, driven
by the fantasy that correlation is causation, that because you did X activity, you'll buy Y product.
It may be foolhardy to make predictions about the fast-evolving tech world, but Silverman offers
some chilling evidence that the world of "big data" is beginning to affect the choices available
to us. Some
healthcare companies will lower your premiums if you use a fitness-tracking app (and share that
data, of course). Data about what you eat and buy is increasingly being used like your credit score,
to determine if you are worthy of that job, that car or that home.
So what? A good citizen who eats her greens and pays her bills has nothing to fear! And if she
worries that some misstep-glancing at an unsavory website, running a red light, suffering a computer
hack-will damage her, she can just pay protection money to one of several companies that exist to
safeguard their clients' online reputations. Silverman has no solution to these linked problems,
of course, since there is far too much money driving this brave new world and far too little government
will to resist. Mass surveillance is the present and the future. But if information-meaning data
points-is corporate power, then knowledge and critical thinking may be citizen power.
Silverman is too cautious and self-conscious a thinker to inspire a revolution. Instead, he advocates
a kind of lowlevel "social-media rebellion" - messing with, rather than rejecting, the digitally
networked world in which we live. Putting up a cartoon monkey as your online avatar might not
feel like much of a blow to the Facebook assault on privacy, but it's an annoyance to the
booming facial- recognition industry-and perhaps a few million determined annoyances can disrupt
the techno-utopia in favor of the common good.
Joanna Scutts is a freelance writer based in Queens, NY, and a board member
of the National Book Critics Circle. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in the Washington
Post, the New Yorker Online, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal and several other publications.
You can follow her on Twitter @life_savour.
Shutdown begins now, completely dead by January 2016
Google killing off its own software projects is nothing new, but the Mountain View goliath
will soon kill your software projects, too, if you host them on Google Code.
The online advertising titan said on Thursday that it is shutting down its code collaboration
service, which was launched in 2006, effective immediately. The service hosts many projects
including research produced by Google's own Project Zero security experts.
The reason for the cancelation is said to be because most developers prefer superior options,
including GitHub and Bitbucket, and that as a result, maintaining Google Code was too much work for
the actual return.
"As developers migrated away from Google Code, a growing share of the remaining projects were spam
or abuse," said Google's Chris DiBona in a Thursday blog post. "Lately, the administrative load has
consisted almost exclusively of abuse management."
Your humble Reg hack will leave it to you, dear reader, to come up with as many witty retorts as
you deem appropriate. The important thing is that Google Code is no longer accepting any new
projects, beginning on Thursday.
Come August 24, you won't be able to commit any code changes to existing projects, either, because
that's when the site goes read-only.
Finally, on January 26, 2016, Google Code will be officially closed. You'll still be able to
download tarballs of all your project's files through the end of the year – including source code,
issues, and wikis – but after the end of 2016, all bets are off.
Google points out that there are already numerous easy ways to migrate your projects to alternative
code hosting services. Google Code itself provides a tool that can export projects to GitHub, for
example. SourceForge, similarly, has an import service, and Google provides standalone tools for
exporting to GitHub and Bitbucket.
"We will also make ourselves available over the next three months to those projects that need help
migrating from Google Code to other hosts," DiBona said.
While the public Google Code service will shut down, however, Google plans to continue to host its
own high-profile projects, such as Chrome and Android, and it will still maintain mirrors of other
key open source projects, such as the Linux kernel and Eclipse.
"We know this decision will cause some pain for those of you still using Google Code and we're
sorry for that," DiBona said. "We'll continue to do our best to make the migration process easy for
you." ®
"Instead of a win-win, the Internet is, in fact, more akin to a negative feedback loop in which
we network users are its victims rather than beneficiaries,"
Andrew Keen, The Internet Is Not the Answer (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015), 288 pp., $25.00.
DURING THE past few years, if you were one of the many people trawling the dating website OkCupid
in search of love, you might have received a notice letting you know it had found someone who was an
"exceptionally good" match for you. You might have contacted this match and even gone on dates with
this person, comfortable in the knowledge that a sophisticated algorithm had done the difficult work
of sorting through millions of profiles to find someone with just the right balance of appealing quirks
and concupiscent charms to match your own delightful attributes.
What you didn't know is that OkCupid was experimenting on you. Engineers programmed the site to
send its users matches that it claimed were "exceptional" but that were in fact bogus-all for the
purpose of finding out if you would believe the assessment and pursue the match. Not
surprisingly, most users did. We are nothing if not suggestible when it comes to love, even if Cupid's
arrow has been replaced by OkCupid's algorithm.
This past summer, Christian Rudder, the founder of OkCupid, was prompted to publicize his company's
manipulation of its users in response to the furor created by Facebook's acknowledgement that it, too,
often uses the social network as a massive online behavioral-science experiment. In January 2012, more
than half a million Facebook users became unwitting lab rats when the company deliberately massaged
its users' news feeds by putting either more or less positive information in them, ostensibly to determine
if emotions are "contagious." (Short answer: yes, but behavioral science had already proven this; Facebook,
by contrast, was not doing this for science. The company wanted to show advertisers that it could manipulate
its users.)
For a brief moment, as news of these experiments became public, we caught a glimpse of the chasm
that has developed between what technology companies like Facebook and OkCupid assume about their users
and how those users actually feel. Some OkCupid devotees were horrified to learn that the site
keeps not only every single message sent to a potential date, but also bits of messages erased while
trying to craft a perfectly pitched response. The users felt, well, used. Rudder was unmoved.
As one of his OkCupid blog posts boasted, "We Experiment On Human Beings!"
Both the public's brief outrage and the hubris of the technology companies would come as no surprise
to Andrew Keen, whose new book, The Internet Is Not the Answer, offers a critical narrative of the
various ways Silicon Valley is reshaping the world's economy and values-and not for the better.
"Instead of a win-win, the Internet is, in fact, more akin to a negative feedback loop in which we
network users are its victims rather than beneficiaries," Keen writes. "Rather than the answer,
the Internet is actually the central question about our connected twenty-first-century world."
Keen states outright that his book is a synthesis, and it contains both the benefits and drawbacks
of one-repetitive and larded with quotations, it mainly advances arguments that have been made already
(and in greater depth) by technology critics such as Jaron Lanier, Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr.
Withal, he provides a timely and necessary overview of how the Internet arrived at its present state
and a bracing polemic about where it's headed. If, as MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito once said, "The
Internet is not a technology; it's a belief system," then Andrew Keen is one of its more compelling
heretics.
SOMETIME AROUND 1989, Keen argues, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee sketched the early outline
for the World Wide Web, the world changed. This new world, defined by the Internet's expansion, is
one that has "created new values, new wealth, new debates, new elites, new scarcities, new markets,
and above all, a new kind of economy." It is a world where, as a recent United Nations report noted,
more people have cell phones than access to functioning toilets.
Many early Internet champions believed that the Web they were building would connect people in a
way that would inaugurate an era of creative, cooperative economic and technological development. Technologists
such as Berners-Lee and Robert Kahn had backgrounds in research science and academia; they were not
focused on the potential profitability of their enterprise. Once the U.S. government opened up the
Internet to commercial use in the early 1990s, however, Keen shows how it "triggered the rush by
a new class of technological oligarchs in the United States to acquire prime online real estate."
In Keen's telling, the story of the Internet can be "summarized in a single word: money." One of
the creators of the early Web browser Netscape captured the mood well when he said, "The hell with
the commune. This was business."
But it is business that, for all of its rhetoric about innovation and disruption, has taken a traditional
form. The online world is now dominated by a small group of big companies-Google, Amazon, Apple and
Facebook foremost among them-that function like the monopolies of old. One technology investor whom
Keen cites puts it this way: "The Internet, in its current form, has simply replaced the old boss with
a new boss and these new bosses have market power that, in time, will be vastly larger than that of
the old boss."
The Internet and our digital media are quietly becoming a pervasive and manipulative interactive
surveillance system. Leading U.S. online companies, while claiming to be strong supporters of
an open and democratic Internet, are working behind the scenes to ensure that they have unlimited and
unchecked power to "shadow" each of us online. They have allied with global advertisers to transform
the Internet into a medium whose true ambition is to track, influence and sell, in anever-ending
cycle, their products and political ideas. While Google, Facebook and other digital giants
claim to strongly support a "democratic" Internet, their real goal is to use all the
"screens"we use to empower a highly commercialized and corporatized digital media culture.
Last Thursday was widely viewed as a victory for "Internet Freedom" and a blow to a "corporatized"
Internet as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) endorsed a historic public utility framework
for Network Neutrality (NN). It took the intervention of President Obama last year, who
called for "the strongest possible rules to
protect net neutrality," to dramatically transform the FCC's plans. Its chairman, Thomas Wheeler, a
former cable and telecom lobbyist, had previously been ambivalent about endorsing strong utility-like
regulations. But feeling the pressure, especially from the president, he became a "born again" NN champion,
leading the agency to
endorse
"strong, sustainable rules to protect the Open Internet."
But the next day, the Obama White House took another approach to Internet Freedom, handing
the leading online companies, including Google, Facebook, and their Fortune-type advertising clients,
a major political victory. The administration released its long-awaited "Consumer
Privacy Bill of Rights" legislation. The bill enables the most powerful corporations and their
trade associations to greatly determine what American privacy rights will be. By giving further control
over how data are gathered and used online, the administration basically ceded more clout to a corporate
elite that will be able to effectively decide how the Internet and digital applications operate, today
and in the near future.
How do privacy rules impact the openness of the Internet, and the ability to promote and sustain
progressive and alternative perspectives? While much of the public debate on pervasive data mining
has focused on the role of the NSA and other intelligence agencies that were exposed by Edward Snowden,
there has not been as much discussion on the impact of the commercial data system that is at the core
of the Internet today. Google, Facebook, and others use our data as the basis of an ever-expanding
global system of commercial surveillance. This information is gathered from our mobile devices, PCs,
apps, social networks, and increasingly even TVs-and stored in digital profiles. These far-reaching
dossiers-which can be accessed and updated in milliseconds-can include information on our race/ethnicity,
financial status, health concerns, location, online behavior, what our children do, whom we communicate
with on social media, and much more.
The major online companies are continually expanding their commercial data gathering practices.
They now merge and use our online and offline data (what we do online and information collected from
store loyalty cards, etc.); track us across all the devices we use (PCs, mobile, etc.); and amass even
more data about us supplied by a vast network of
data broker alliances and partnerships (such asFacebook
with its myriad of data partners, including Acxiom and Epsilon). A U.S. digital data industry
"arms race," with companies vying to own the most complete set of records on every consumer, has also
led to a
wave of mergers and acquisitions, where companies that have already compiled huge datasets on Americans
(and global consumers) being swallowed up by even larger ones.
Leading corporations are investing vast sums to harvest and, in their own words, make "actionable"
information we now generate nearly 24/7. So-called "Big Data" technologies enable companies to quickly
analyze and take advantage of all this information, including understanding how each of us uses online
media and mobile phones. A score of "Math Men and Women"-led advertising-technology companies have
pioneered the use of super fast computers that track where we are online and, in milliseconds, crunch
through lots of our data to decide whether to target us with advertising and marketing (regardless
of whether we use a PC or mobile device and, increasingly, using our geolocation information).
These machines are used to "auction" us off individually to the highest bidder, so we can be instantly
delivered some form of marketing (or even political) message. Increasingly, the largest brands and
ad agencies are using all this data and new tactics to sell us junk food, insurance, cars, and political
candidates. For example, these anonymous machines can determine whether to offer us a high-interest
pay day loan or a lower interest credit card; or an ad from one political group versus another.
But it's not just the ability to harvest data that's the source of increased corporate clout on
the Internet. Our profiles are tied to a system of micro-persuasion, the 21st century updating of traditional
"Madison Avenue" advertising tactics that relied on "subliminal" and cultural influence. Today,
online ads are constructed by connecting our information to a highly sophisticated digital marketing
apparatus. At places like Google's
BrandLab, AT&T's
Adworks Lab, or through research efforts such as
Facebook IQ, leading companies help their well-heeled clients
take advantage of the latest insights from neuromarketing
(to deliberately influence our emotions and subconscious), social media
monitoring, new forms of corporate product
placement, and the most effective
ways to use all of our digital platforms.
The online marketing industry is helping determine the dimensions of our digital world. Much
of the Internet and our mobile communications are being purposely developed as a highly commercialized
marketplace, where the revenues that help fund content go to a select, and largely ad-supported, few.
With Google, Facebook, major advertisers and agencies all working closely together throughout the world
to further commercialize our relationship to digital media, and given their ownership over the leading
search engines, social networks, online video channels, and how "monetization" of content operates,
these forces pose a serious obstacle to a more democratic and diverse online environment.
One of the few barriers standing in the way of their digital dominance is the growing public
concern about our commercial
privacy. U.S. companies have largely bitterly opposed proposed privacy legislation-in the U.S. and
also in the
European
Union (where data protection, as it is called, is considered a
fundamental right).
Effective regulations for privacy in the U.S. would restore our control of the information that has
been collected about us, versus the system now in place that, for the most part, enables companies
to freely use it. But under the proposed Obama plan, Google, Facebook and other data-gathering
companies would be allowed to determine the rules. Through a scheme the White House calls a "multi-stakeholder"
process, industry-dominated meetings-with consumer and privacy groups vastly outnumbered and out-resourced-would
develop so-called self-regulatory "codes of conduct" to govern how the U.S. treats data collection
and privacy. Codes would be developed to address, for example, how companies can track and use our
location information; how they compile dossiers about us based on what we do at the local grocery store
and read online; how health data can be collected and used from devices like Fitbit; and more. This
process is designed to protect the bottom line of the data companies, which the Obama White House views
as important to the economy and job growth. (Stealing other people's data, in other words, is one of
America's most successful industries). Like similar self-regulatory efforts, stakeholder codes are
really designed to sanction existing business practices and enable companies to continue to accumulate
and use vast data assets unencumbered. The administration claims that such a stakeholder process can
operate more effectively than legislation, operating quickly in "Internet time." Dominated by
industry
as they are, stakeholder bodies are incapable of doing anything that would adversely impact their own
future-which currently depends on the ability to gather and use all our data.
The administration's bill also strips away the power of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which
now acts as the leading federal watchdog on privacy. Instead of empowering the FTC to develop national
rules that enable individuals to make their own privacy decisions, the bill forces the agency to quickly
review (in as little as 90 days) the proposed stakeholder codes-with little effective power to reject
them. Companies become largely immune to FTC oversight and enforcement when they agree to abide by
the self-regulatory policies their lobbyists basically wrote. In a rare rebuke to the administration,
the
FTC, leading Congressional
Democrats, and the majority of consumer and
privacy organizations rejected the White House's privacy plan. But the administration does not
appear to be willing, for now, to change its support for the data companies; and as we know, Silicon
Valley and their business allies have strong support in Congress that will prevent any privacy law
from passing for now.
To see how the online lobby has different views on Internet Freedom, compare, for example the statements
of the "Internet Association"-the lobbying trade organization that
represents Google, Facebook, Amazon and dozens
of other major online data-gathering companies-on last week's two developments. It
praised the FCC NN decision for creating
"strong, enforceable net neutrality rules … banning paid prioritization, blocking, and discrimination
online." But the group rejected the
Administration's privacy proposal, as weak as it was, explaining that "today's wide-ranging legislative
proposal outlined by the Commerce Department casts a needlessly imprecise net." At stake, as the Internet
Association knows, is the ability of its members to expand their businesses throughout the world unencumbered.
For example, high on the agenda for the Internet Association
members are new U.S. brokered
global trade deals, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which will free
our digital giants from having to worry about strong privacy laws abroad.
While the NN battle correctly viewed Comcast, Verizon, and other cable and phone giants as major
opponents to a more democratic digital media environment, many of the online companies were seen as
supporters and allies. But an "open" network free from control of our cable/telco monopolies is just
one essential part for a more diverse and public interest-minded online system. Freedom must also prevent
powerful interests from determining the very structure of communications in the digital age. Those
companies that can collect and most effectively use our information are also gatekeepers and shapers
of our Internet Future.
The NN victory is only one key step for a public-interest agenda for digital media. We also must
place limits on today's digital media conglomerates, especially their ability to use all our data.
The U.S is one of the only "developed" countries that still
doesn't
have a national law protecting our privacy. For those concerned about the environment, we must
also address how U.S. companies are using the Internet to encourage the
global public to engage in a never-ending
consumption spree that has consequences for sustainability and a more equitable future.
There is ultimately an alignment of interests between the so-called "old" media of cable and the
telephone industry with the "new" online media. They share similar values when it comes to ensuring
the media they control brings eyeballs and our bank accounts to serve them and their advertising clients.
While progressive and public interest voices today find the Internet accessible for organizing and
promoting alternative views, to keep it so will require much more work.
Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (
www.democraticmedia.org).
I think that most data Google compile to increase its advertizing revenue is useless, wasted effort.
Moreover in many people such "snooping" and silly attempt to suggest "relevant" ad based on observation
of your browsing behaviors and other data create a strong allergic reaction to anything connected with
Google including Android phones. In a way Google is its own greatest enemy. Moreover after google
efforts of creation on cookies independent "unique user id" it lost remnants of credibility.
"In 2012, the data broker industry generated 150 billion in revenue that's twice the size of
the entire intelligence budget of the United States government-all generated by the effort to detail
and sell information about our private lives."
- Senator
Jay Rockefeller IV
"Quite simply, in the digital age, data-driven marketing has become the fuel on which America's
free market engine runs."
- Direct Marketing Association
Google is very secretive about the exact nature of its for-profit Intelligence operation and
how it uses the petabytes of data it collects on us every single day for financial gain. Fortunately,
though, we can get a sense of the kind of info that Google and other Surveillance Valley megacorps
compile on us, and the ways in which that intel might be used and abused, by looking at the business
practices of the "data broker" industry.
Thanks to a series of Senate hearings, the business of data brokerage is finally being understood
by consumers, but the industry got its start back in the 1970s as a direct outgrowth of the failure
of telemarketing. In its early days, telemarketing had an abysmal success rate: only 2 percent of people
contacted would become customers. In his book, "The Digital Perso," Daniel J. Solove explains what
happened next:
To increase the low response rate, marketers sought to sharpen their targeting techniques, which
required more consumer research and an effective way to collect, store, and analyze information about
consumers. The advent of the computer database gave marketers this long sought-after ability - and
it launched a revolution in targeting technology.
Data brokers rushed in to fill the void. These operations pulled in information from any source
they could get their hands on - voter registration, credit card transactions, product warranty information,
donations to political campaigns and non-profits, court records - storing it in master databases and
then analyzing it in all sorts of ways that could be useful to direct-mailing and telemarketing outfits.
It wasn't long before data brokers realized that this information could be used beyond telemarketing,
and quickly evolved into a global for-profit intelligence business that serves every conceivable data
and intelligence need.
Today, the industry churns somewhere around $200 billion in revenue annually. There are up to 4,000
data broker companies - some of the biggest are publicly traded - and together, they have detailed
information on just about every adult in the western world.
No source of information is sacred: transaction records are bought in bulk from stores, retailers
and merchants; magazine subscriptions are recorded; food and restaurant preferences are noted; public
records and social networks are scoured and scraped. What kind of prescription drugs did you buy? What
kind of books are you interested in? Are you a registered voter? To what non-profits do you donate?
What movies do you watch? Political documentaries? Hunting reality TV shows?
That info is combined and kept up to date with address, payroll information, phone numbers, email
accounts, social security numbers, vehicle registration and financial history. And all that is sliced,
isolated, analyzed and mined for data about you and your habits in a million different ways.
The dossiers are not restricted to generic market segmenting categories like "Young Literati" or
"Shotguns and Pickups" or "Kids & Cul-de-Sacs," but often contain the most private and intimate details
about a person's life, all of it packaged and sold over and over again to anyone willing to pay.
Take MEDbase200, a boutique for-profit intel outfit that specializes in selling health-related consumer
data. Well, until last week, the company offered its clients a list of
rape victims (or "rape sufferers," as the company calls them) at the low price of $79.00 per thousand.
The company claims to have segmented this data set into hundreds of different categories, including
stuff like the ailments they suffer, prescription drugs they take and their ethnicity:
These rape sufferers are family members who have reported, or have been identified as individuals
affected by specific illnesses, conditions or ailments relating to rape. Medbase200 is the owner of
this list. Select from families affected by over 500 different ailments, and/or who are consumers
of over 200 different Rx medications. Lists can be further selected on the basis of lifestyle, ethnicity,
geo, gender, and much more. Inquire today for more information.
MEDbase promptly took its "rape sufferers" list off line last week after its existence was revealed
in a Senate investigation into the activities of the data-broker industry. The company pretended like
the list was a huge mistake. A MEDbase rep
tried convincing a Wall Street Journal reporter that its rape dossiers were just a "hypothetical
list of health conditions/ailments." The rep promised it was never sold to anyone. Yep, it was a big
mistake. We can all rest easy now. Thankfully, MEDbase has hundreds of other similar dossier collections,
hawking the most private and sensitive medical information.
For instance, if lists of rape victims aren't your thing, MEDbase can sell dossiers on people suffering
from anorexia, substance abuse, AIDS and HIV, Alzheimer's Disease, Asperger Disorder, Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, Bedwetting (Enuresis), Binge Eating Disorder, Depression, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,
Genital Herpes, Genital Warts, Gonorrhea, Homelessness, Infertility, Syphilis… the
list goes on and on and on and on.
Normally, such detailed health information would fall under federal law and could not be disclosed
or sold without consent. But because these data harvesters rely on indirect sources of information
instead of medical records, they're able to sidestep regulations put in place to protect the privacy
of people's health data.
MEBbase isn't the only company exploiting these loopholes. By the industry's own estimates, there
are something like 4,000 for-profit intel companies operating in the United States. Many of them sell
information that would normally be restricted under federal law. They offer all sorts of targeted dossier
collections on
every population segments of our society, from the affluent to the extremely vulnerable:
people with drug addictions
detailed personal info on police officers and other government employees
people with bad credit/bankruptcies
minorities who've used payday loan services
domestic violence shelter locations (normally these addresses would be shielded by law)
elderly gamblers
If you want to see how this kind of profile data can be used to scam unsuspecting individuals, look
no further than a Richard Guthrie, an Iowa retiree who had his life savings siphoned out of his bank
account. Their weapon of choice: databases bought from large for-profit data brokers listing retirees
who entered sweepstakes and bought lottery tickets.
Here's a 2007 New York Times story
describing the racket:
Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in
a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold
his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.
InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million older people "looking for
ways to make money," and "Suffering Seniors," 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease.
"Oldies but Goodies" contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list
said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."
Data brokers argue that cases like Guthrie are an anomaly - a once-in-a-blue-moon tragedy in an
industry that takes privacy and legal conduct seriously. But cases of identity thieves and sophistical
con-rings obtaining data from for-profit intel businesses abound. Scammers are a lucrative source of
revenue. Their money is just as good as anyone else's. And some of the profile "products" offered by
the industry seem tailored specifically to fraud use.
As Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Yves Leblanc told the New York Times: "Only one kind of
customer wants to buy lists of seniors interested in lotteries and sweepstakes: criminals. If someone
advertises a list by saying it contains gullible or elderly people, it's like putting out a sign saying
'Thieves welcome here.'"
So what is InfoUSA, exactly? What kind of company would create and sell lists customized for use
by scammers and cons?
As it turns out, InfoUSA is not some fringe or shady outfit, but a hugely profitable politically
connected company. InfoUSA was started by Vin Gupta in the 1970s as a basement operation hawking detailed
lists of RV and mobile home dealers. The company quickly expanded into other areas and began providing
business intel services to thousands of businesses. By 2000, the company raised more than $30
million in venture capital funding from major Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
By then, InfoUSA boasted of having information on 230 million consumers. A few years later, InfoUSA
counted the biggest Valley companies as its clients, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. It
got involved not only in raw data and dossiers, but moved into payroll and financial, conducted polling
and opinion research, partnered with CNN, vetted employees and provided customized services for law
enforcement and all sorts of federal and government agencies: processing government payments, helping
states locate tax cheats and even administrating President Bill Clinton "Welfare to Work" program.
Which is not surprising, as Vin Gupta is a major and
close political
supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
In 2008, Gupta was sued by InfoUSA shareholders for inappropriately using corporate funds. Shareholders
accused of Gupta of illegally funneling corporate money to fund an extravagant lifestyle and curry
political favor. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit questioned why Gupta used private corporate
jets to fly the Clintons on personal and campaign trips, and why Gupta awarded Bill Clinton a $3.3
million consulting gig.
As a result of the scandal, InfoUSA was threatened with delisting from Nasdaq, Gupta was forced
out and the company was snapped up for half a billion dollars by CCMP Capital Advisors, a major private
equity firm spun off from JP Morgan in 2006. Today, InfoUSA continues to do business under the name
Infogroup, and has nearly 4,000 employees working in nine countries.
As big as Infogroup is, there are dozens of other for-profit intelligence businesses that are even
bigger: massive multi-national intel conglomerates with revenues in the billions of dollars. Some of
them, like Lexis-Nexis and Experian, are well known, but mostly these are outfits that few Americans
have heard of, with names like Epsilon, Altegrity and Acxiom.
These for-profit intel behemoths are involved in everything from debt collection to credit reports
to consumer tracking to healthcare analysis, and provide all manner of tailored services to government
and law enforcement around the world. For instance, Acxiom has done business with most major corporations,
and boasts of intel on "500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points
per person. That includes a majority of adults in the United States," according to the
New York Times.
This data is analyzed and sliced in increasingly sophisticated and intrusive ways to profile and
predict behavior. Merchants are using it customize shopping experience- Target
launched
a program to figure out if a woman shopper was pregnant and when the baby would be born, "even
if she didn't want us to know." Life insurance companies are experimenting with predictive consumer
intel to estimate life expectancy and determine eligibility for life insurance policies. Meanwhile,
health insurance companies are raking over this data in order to deny and challenge the medical claims
of their policyholders.
Even more alarming, large employers are turning to for-profit intelligence to mine and monitor the
lifestyles and habits of their workers outside the workplace. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal
described how employers have partnered with health insurance companies to monitor workers for "health-adverse"
behavior that could lead to higher medical expenses down the line:
Your company already knows whether you have been taking your meds, getting your teeth cleaned and
going for regular medical checkups. Now some employers or their insurance companies are tracking what
staffers eat, where they shop and how much weight they are putting on - and taking action to keep
them in line.
But companies also have started scrutinizing employees' other behavior more discreetly. Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of North Carolina recently began buying spending data on more than 3 million people
in its employer group plans. If someone, say, purchases plus-size clothing, the health plan could
flag him for potential obesity - and then call or send mailings offering weight-loss solutions.
…"Everybody is using these databases to sell you stuff," says Daryl Wansink, director of health
economics for the Blue Cross unit. "We happen to be trying to sell you something that can get you
healthier."
"As an employer, I want you on that medication that you need to be on," says Julie Stone, a HR expert
at Towers Watson told the Wall Street Journal.
Companies might try to frame it as a health issue. I mean, what kind of asshole could be against
employers caring about the wellbeing of their workers? But their ultimate concern has nothing to do
with the employee health. It's all about the brutal bottom line: keeping costs down.
An employer monitoring and controlling your activity outside of work? You don't have to be union
agitator to see the problems with this kind of mindset and where it could lead. Because there are lots
of things that some employers might want to know about your personal life, and not only to "keep costs
down." It could be anything: to weed out people based on undesirable habits or discriminate against
workers based on sexual orientation, regulation and political beliefs.
It's not difficult to imagine that a large corporation facing a labor unrest or a unionization drive
would be interested in proactively flagging potential troublemakers by pinpointing employees that might
be sympathetic to the cause. But the technology and data is already here for wide and easy application:
did a worker watch certain political documentaries, donate to environmental non-profits, join an animal
rights Facebook group, tweet out support for Occupy Wall Street, subscribe to the Nation or Jacobin,
buy Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"? Or maybe the worker simply rented one of Michael Moore's films?
Run your payroll through one of the massive consumer intel databases and look if there is any matchup.
Bound to be plenty of unpleasant surprises for HR!
This has happened in the past, although in a cruder and more limited way. In the 1950s, for instance,
some lefty intellectuals had their lefty newspapers and mags delivered to P.O. boxes instead of their
home address, worrying that otherwise they'd get tagged as Commie symps. That might have worked
in the past. But with the power of private intel companies, today there's nowhere to hide.
FTC Commissioner Julie Brill has repeatedly voiced concern that unregulated data being amassed by
for-profit intel companies would be used to discriminate and deny employment, and to determine consumer
access to everything from credit to insurance to housing. "As Big Data algorithms become more accurate
and powerful, consumers need to know a lot more about the ways in which their data is used," she told
the Wall Street Journal.
Pam Dixon, executive director of the Privacy World Forum, agrees. Dixon frequently testifies on
Capitol Hill to warn about the growing danger to privacy and civil liberties posed by big data and
for-profit intelligence. In Congressional testimony back in 2009, Dixon called this growing mountain
of data the "modern permanent record" and explained that users of these new intel capabilities will
inevitably expand to include not just marketers and law enforcement, but insurance companies, employers,
landlords, schools, parents, scammers and stalkers. "The information – like credit reports – will be
used to make basic decisions about the ability of individual to travel, participate in the economy,
find opportunities, find places to live, purchase goods and services, and make judgments about the
importance, worthiness, and interests of individuals."
* *
For the past year, Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV has been conducting a Senate Commerce Committee
investigation of the data broker industry and how it affects consumers. The committee finished its
investigation last week without reaching any real conclusions, but issued a report warning about the
dangers posed by the for-profit intel industry and the need for further action by lawmakers. The report
noted with concern that many of these firms failed to cooperate with the investigation into their business
practices:
Data brokers operate behind a veil of secrecy. Three of the largest companies – Acxiom, Experian,
and Epsilon – to date have been similarly secretive with the Committee with respect to their practices,
refusing to identify the specific sources of their data or the customers who purchase it. … The refusal
by several major data broker companies to provide the Committee complete responses regarding data
sources and customers only reinforces the aura of secrecy surrounding the industry.
Rockefeller's investigation was an important first step breaking open this secretive industry, but
it was missing one notable element. Despite its focus on companies that feed on people's personal data,
the investigation did not include Google or the other big Surveillance Valley data munchers. And that's
too bad. Because if anything, the investigation into data brokers only highlighted the danger posed
by the consumer-facing data companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Apple.
As intrusive as data brokers are, the level of detail in the information they compile on Americans
pales to what can be vacuumed up by a company like Google. To compile their dossiers, traditional data
brokers rely on mostly indirect intel: what people buy, where they vacation, what websites they visit.
Google, on the other hand, has access to the raw uncensored contents of your inner life: personal emails,
chats, the diary entries and medical records that we store in the cloud, our personal communication
with doctors, lawyers, psychologists, friends. Data brokers know us through our spending habits. Google
accesses the unfiltered details of our personal lives.
A recent study showed that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having their online activity
tracked and analyzed. Seventy-three percent of people polled for the
Pew Internet & American Life Project viewed the tracking of their search history as an invasion
of privacy, while 68 percent were against targeted advertising, replying: "I don't like having my online
behavior tracked and analyzed."
This isn't news to companies like Google, which last year warned shareholders: "Privacy concerns
relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using
our products and services."
Little wonder then that Google, and the rest of Surveillance Valley, is terrified that the
conversation about surveillance could soon broaden to include not only government espionage, but for-profit
spying as well.
In a fundamental Google is a well equipped cemetery for programming talent. Way too many top programmers,
seduced by high salaries, are working on junk projects directed on just increasing Google dominance,
not pushing the envelope.
Someone once observed that the difference between Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher was that whereas
Thatcher believed that she was always right, Blair believed not only that he was right but also that
he was good. Visitors to the big technology companies in California come away with the feeling that
they have been talking to tech-savvy analogues of Blair. They are fired with a zealous conviction
that they are doing great stuff for the world, and proud of the fact that they work insanely hard in
the furtherance of that goal. The fact that they are richly rewarded for their dedication is, one is
given to believe, incidental.
The guys (and they are mostly guys) who manage these good folk are properly respectful of their
high-IQ charges. Chief among them is Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and a man who
takes his responsibilities seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he co-authored a book with his
colleague Jonathan Rosenberg on the care and maintenance of these precious beings. Dr Schmidt objects
to the demeaning term – "knowledge workers" – that economists have devised for them. Google employees,
he tells us, are much, much more impressive than mere knowledge workers: they are "smart creatives".
In the opinion of their chairman, these wunderkinder are very special indeed. They are "not averse
to taking risks", for example. Nor are they "punished or held back when those risky initiatives fail".
They are "not hemmed in by role definitions or organisational structures". And "they don't keep quiet
when they disagree with something". And so on. Altogether, they are an admirable body of men and women
– mostly men (70%), admittedly, but, hey, what's a little gender imbalance in a brave new world.
Dr Schmidt's smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then some. They are, to use
his term, "overworked in a good way". The concept of work-life balance can, he thinks, "be insulting
to smart, dedicated employees", for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be separated.
The best corporate cultures, he thinks, "invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with
too many interesting things to do both at work and at home".
All of which no doubt makes perfect sense if you're running an outfit like Google. But it also highlights
the extent to which our world is bifurcating into parallel universes. In one – that populated by technology
companies, investment banks, hedge funds and other elite institutions – people are over-stimulated,
appreciated, overworked (but in a "good way", of course) and richly rewarded. Meanwhile, in the other
universe, people are under-stimulated, overworked and poorly rewarded. And the gap between the two
universes appears to be widening, not narrowing every time Moore's Law ratchets up another notch in
computing power.
Which is why we need to make a connection between what those smart creatives in California and elsewhere
are creating and what is happening in the real world. In that domain, the level of economic inequality
has attained staggering proportions for reasons that Thomas Piketty set out in his celebrated book
Capital in the 21st Century.
Although there have been lots of detailed arguments about Piketty's work, his central proposition
– that in the absence of special circumstances such as war or redistributive taxation, the rate of
return to capital exceeds the rate of return to labour – is both simple and obvious. What it means
is that if your wealth involves ownership of capital assets (like company shares), then you will inexorably
get richer at compound rates.
One of the oddest things about the furore surrounding Piketty's book was that almost nobody talked
about the role of technology in all this. Specifically, there was little discussion of the strange
coincidence that the recent catastrophic rise in levels of inequality has coincided neatly with the
digital revolution.
When you think about it, it's clear that this isn't just a random correlation. The digital revolution
is driving inequality, not reducing it. That's because the technology has certain characteristics (zero
marginal returns, network effects and technological lock-in, to name just three) which confer colossal
power on corporations that have mastered the technology. In the process it confers vast wealth on those
who own them.
But that wealth isn't shared with the users of the platforms operated by those corporations: most
of the work that generates revenues for Facebook or Google is done by unpaid workers – you and me.
And folks who work in paid occupations powered by those platforms – Uber drivers, Amazon warehouse
workers, to name just two – are not sharing in the wealth it generates for their owners either. Like
Google's smart creatives, these people are also overworked. But not in that "good way" advocated by
Dr Schmidt.
CautiousOptimist -> Scurra 23 Feb 2015 06:37
Years ago, Florida passed the Sunshine Law, which was meant to ensure that all political dealings
are public and open. While not perfect, it has certainly helped.
Regulation can be a two edged sword. As we see with Uber, entrenched interests use government regulation
to preserve their position.
High Tech is different, in that a company can go from complete dominance to nothing so quickly.
I remember when Novell was the dominant company in networking. Where are they today? I remember Bill
Gates saying at one point that Microsoft was always about 2 years from being out of business, if a
better competitor comes along. So yes, an earned monopoly can be lost very quickly and easily, so
long as outside powers are not used to preserve it.
The underlying problem with micro-regulation is that the regulators are rarely as smart or motivated
as the ones trying to circumvent regulation. The financial industry is a perfect example.
Scurra -> CautiousOptimist 23 Feb 2015 06:29
Didn't see that coming, did you? :)
:) No. We can agree about that subject at least. And we probably agree about crony capitalism too,
but I think that's a flaw in our systems of democracy rather than with politicians per se. There is
no reason why politics should not be completely open and transparent, with all income, meetings, decisions
etc. being in public and all papers etc. published. Our responsibility as citizens is not just to
elect representatives to act on our behalf, but to hold them to account, which is very difficult to
do when so much is hidden. And, of course, it's also hard work, which is why we pretend that democracy
is just about the former and not the latter, and then act surprised when it breaks.
As to the other point, I am not sure that there is any such thing as an "earned" monopoly - too often,
it's simply being in the right place at the right time (often combined with canny marketing), rather
than anything especially exceptional or innovative. It's just that (as with earlier cases of railroads,
oil companies, telecoms etc.), the market exploded far faster than regulation was able to handle it.
Which does indeed then lead to crony capitalism.
1nn1t -> WurzelGummidge 23 Feb 2015 03:53
The other may have a very IQ ,be great at programming and move to California and have a massive
income in their mid twenties.This could not have happened in 30 years ago.
It happens where a single production facility can export its product globally at, as JN points
out above, negligible marginal cost.
Newspapers, sound recordings, and films are earlier examples of industries where a few talented
twenty-somethings could become fabulously rich producing content for national or global saleable distribution
systems.
"Tech" is doing now what record companies and DJs did to dance-hall orchestras seventy years ago.
KarlHMarx -> LeCochon 23 Feb 2015 02:05
Not easy to fix: when you do not own the capital, you have no bargaining power. And no one owns
his intellectual capital: it's value depends on the company that exploits it. You're done: even if
handsomely paid, it will represent a small portion of it's actual value.
NoSuchThingAs 23 Feb 2015 01:35
The separation of the capital (material or intellectual) and labour is fatal to the worker. Competence
is a special resource, or capital. Those well paid little "geniuses" think they own it. But they don't.
They are endoctrinated, will get older and replaced - or exhausted. Whereas you can refurbish a machine,
you can't refurbish an over exploited body or brain. When you realize it's too late, you lost your
precious capital - modern stakhanovism. Value added is difficult to assess in innovative work, but
it can be huge. It's also called Mehrwert or surplus value. It leads to capital accumulation - we
ain't see nothing yet... Intellectual strength of a bunch of motivated (and endoctrinated, thus not
really owning and controlling their own intellectual capital ) young brains can be breathtaking. Who
will win ?
the real owner of the capital and a few super managers like this Eric Schmidt. What is vital to
the system is to make employees think they are on the capital side, thus high, " handsome" wages.
But they are not and will learn it sooner or later. The solution is not to tax more capital and high
wages (Piketty is wrong there) but to better share surplus value among all workers: from the superstar
scientist (life last longer than a few years of hard productive work) to the humble Amazon warehouse
worker.
Bilbobanks 23 Feb 2015 01:11
Google,Facebook et al are Dark Satanic Mills in Silicon Valley and we consumers in the rest of
the world are their unpaid workers.
cswanson420 23 Feb 2015 01:00
I am a peon in the high tech world of Silicon Valley. I am handsomely compensated for my contributions
and I base the rewards largely on my willingness when I was younger to learn computer science. Presently
I spend a good amount of my free time studying mathematics so I may be better able to solve more complicated
problems.
To be frank, growing up in San Francisco - my home town - I know a lot of people that choose not
to spend their time learning. That's their choice. They are not handsomely rewarded and they bitch
about it. If the inequity between those that have and those that do not is caused by technology, then
we must have a discussion about whether a person's capability to contribute to make contributions
to technology is actually a large limiting factor in a person's wages.
nineteensixty 23 Feb 2015 00:19
Ironically, digital innovation means that left-leaning UK publications can be cost-effectively
published in US and Australian markets.
More importantly, while the tech sector is reducing the value of unskilled and semi-skilled labor
in developed countries, it has been a key driver of the massive income growth in developing countries
over the past two decades.
MissionIncredible -> LeCochon,
I know from working in the industry that for all the hype, only a small number of people in
the pyramid are making very good money.
Well, hype is hype, but my experience has been quite different, both from the perspective of working
inside the industry and from running my own websites.
I've also observed Google to be quite helpful: organising seminars, providing APIs or just by building
Android, for example.
I'd say I'm pretty close to the bottom of the pyramid and I'm happy with the earnings.
MissionIncredible,
Specifically, there was little discussion of the strange coincidence that the recent catastrophic
rise in levels of inequality has coincided neatly with the digital revolution.
Yeah, I remember when Gates used to hold people at gunpoint to buy his shitty OS...sour fucking
grapes eh?!
malaca 22 Feb 2015 23:02
Those who can't, whine.
techn0phobe -> nac 22 Feb 2015 22:59
Google and Facebook are notorious for paying under the market rate due to simple supply and demand
- people are lining up to work there. You need an MBA to clean the toilets at Google.
schwit1 writes with news about Google's reservations
to a Justice Department proposal on warrants for electronic data. "Any change in accessing computer
data should go through Congress, the search giant said. The search giant submitted public comments
earlier this week opposing a Justice Department proposal that would grant judges
more leeway in how they can approve search warrants for electronic data.
The push to change an arcane federal rule "raises a number of monumental and highly complex
constitutional, legal, and geopolitical concerns that should be left to Congress to decide," wrote
Richard Salgado, Google's director for law enforcement and information security. The provision,
known as Rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, generally permits judges to grant search
warrants only within the bounds of their judicial district.
Last year, the Justice Department petitioned a judicial advisory committee to amend the rule
to allow judges to approve warrants outside their jurisdictions or in cases where authorities are unsure
where a computer is located. Google, in its comments, blasted the desired rule change as overly
vague, saying the proposal could authorize remote searches on the data of millions of Americans simultaneously-particularly
those who share a network or router-and cautioned it rested on shaky legal footing."
fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @09:02PM (#49084007) Journal
Re:Google don't care about you (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to like or trust Google (and you shouldn't) to agree that
"Hey, let's quietly change rule 41 so that all you need to 'remote search' (by means tactfully
unspecified) a computer anywhere is the approval of a judge, doesn't much matter which, from one
of the 94 federal districts, rather than one at least vaguely related to the matter at hand!"
the proposal could authorize remote searches on the data of millions of Americans simultaneouslyâ"particularly
those who share a network or routerâ"and cautioned it rested on shaky legal footing
1) Of course it is
2) That's the frickin' point
See, the people advocating unlimited surveillance couldn't possibly be stupid enough to
not know this.
They just don't give a fuck.
This is "Yarg! We need security by any means, and if we shit on your rights, too fucking bad,
because we're the good guys".
These clowns might actually believe they're "doing this for the greater good" -- but so
does every fascist and dictator who decides they will do it anyway and we'll thank them later.
Unfortunately, since these people have sworn to uphold the Constitution, I think they should be
hanged or shot. Because whatever they think they're protecting, they're doing more damage
to our liberties than they are solving problems. In fact, they've become the problem.
Once they get over their illusion they're doing it for our own good, then the fun really begins,
and the fascism really goes into effect.
Law enforcement have basically said "fuck the law, the law is what we say it is". And they feel
entitled to do anything they want to. Which means law enforcement is more or less deeming themselves
in charge of everything.
davydagger (2566757) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @09:13AM (#49086887)
god help you if you ask them what security they provide.
First you'll find that the powers you gave them "only to fight terrorism" are being used to drug
cases and other petty crime
Next you'll find that drug cases and other petty crime are only against personal enemies, and done
with such dubious methods you cannot be sure of their guilt, and their powers aren't being used to
find bad guys, but to frame people.
What the three letter soup wants is power to frame people and not have the framing questioned,
by framing anyone who questions them.
You see we've been tacitly complicit in giving up our rights to fight "the war on drugs", but instead
of stomping out drug use, drug use has soared, and our rights have been abandonded. They have no intention
of protecting you from drugs or terrorism, and don't mind the occational terrorist or drug lord from
causing a muckety muck to expand their powers.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @09:04PM (#49084019) Journal
"Parallel Construction"... What good is a cool, powerful, sinister toy if you don't have a cover
story that allows you to lie about the origins of evidence that would otherwise be inadmissible?
Re:
Memex isn't sinister at all. It's a very old idea, and it allows indexing of every possible URL
out to some length, in real time. For those who have the resources to run it, that's a pretty nifty
device. If they can see every criminal website, then they can obtain warrants for the sites based
on their content. At that point, they can seize servers to catch the sites' clients.
Parallel construction is automatically built into that. While they're building a database of website
clients, they have probab
Re:
I should have thought to type this rather than reply for an addendum. Being able to figure out
their strategy with Memex, one might hesitate to post it. We wouldn't want to encourage criminals
to try to circumvent it, after all.
Thing is, you can't. That kind of indexing power can even overcome the character limit I mentioned
just by doing different checks every n cycles of the program. It's perfectly scalable too. There's
no evading it. If a site exists, they will see it, period. And not only site
Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @09:09PM (#49084047)
Jurisdictional reach around (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose you let judges authorize surveillance where the location cannot be determined. Five things
would happen:
1) FBI would not try to determine the location, because they might find it is an unfriendly location
with an unfriendly judge
2) FBI would shop for jurisdiction. Just as patent trolls all go to Marshall Texas, the troll rubber
stamping capital of the world, so the FBI will go to whatever district will rubber stamp their requests.
3) Fail to get the warrant? There's no cross linkage between districts, judges won't spot they're
being asked again for the same warrant, so FBI can simply keep hawking the request around till the
get it.
4) Target will be listed as 'terrorist', actual target device will be router through which millions
of peoples data passes, but then why would a judge in Aspen care about people in Newyork. They're
not his family and his friends.
5) The FBI contracts this out to NSA, who accidentally store all the info while processing the warrants
in these giant data centers they accidentally built, and accidentally data mine it.
Google did a bad job with android security, although the mere fact that applications from Google
Store can be installed created a danger. In other words any smartphone is an unsecure smartphone.
The US creates nearly half of the malicious mobile applications offered through Google Play or the
Apple App Store, according to a mobile security company. The finding upends conventional wisdom that
Asia is the top developer of such apps.
Over 42 percent of the dangerous apps were published in the
United States, according to the report by Marble Security. The company, which offers a mobile security
cloud service, analyzed more than one million apps available on the North American versions of the
Apple App Store or Google Play that do not require a jailbroken or rooted device ‒ meaning they were
not designed for modified devices.
"This came as a surprise to Marble's analysts, who before examining the data would have bet
that most malicious apps originated from publishers in Eastern Europe or Asia," the security company
said in its
report. "While China, Korea, India and Taiwan generate a great number of malicious and risky
apps, their combined total doesn't amount to that of the United States."
... ... ...
Last week the cellist re-opened last year's controversy of the treatment of independent musicians and
small operators by Google's YouTube service by asking her fans for advice. If she refused to sign
the new terms, Google would stop paying her, but could continue to use her music on YouTube, she reported.
If she signed, she'd lose control of her work. The contract would tie her down for five years. We reported
her concerns here on Friday.
Over the weekend, Google disputed her account. Her claims were "patently false", it fumed to industry
blog Digital Music News.
The transcript
However, Keating appears to have kept verbatim notes – strongly indicating that a tape was running
– and she's now published the transcript of the conversation she said she'd had with the YouTube rep
she'd been negotiating with for a year.
The transcript is available
here. Keating
wants to continue her current deal with Google as it stands – but that's not an option, as the rep
makes clear in the transcript. She must sign the new contract and opt in to the Key music service.
She can't run videos without monetisation. Google will "block" her (in the Google rep's words) if she
refuses to sign, "but the commercial terms no longer apply".
"Yeah, it's harsh," the rep agrees in the transcript, before helpfully pointing out "a loophole".
She can disassociate herself from her material and settle for the peanuts YouTube offers, "if you're
not so concerned about revenue". The kind of revenue a successful artist might hope pays the rent.
What's at stake? Experts have contributed several excellent pieces on the spat. The core issue,
as David Lowery points out in
a must-read post, Google wants exclusive control over when and where an author's work appears
on the internet.
He writes:
In other words by saying "no" to Music Key, [you allow] YouTube [to] still feature user generated
videos on their service AND you won't get any money. Think about it. This is like saying "no" to a
record deal but result[ing] in the label having your songs forever and paying you nothing! YouTube
is EVIL.
Newhoff, too, agrees that The New Man seems very similar to the Old Man, the music industry we were
told would die out.
"The new boss wears a new uniform, but he's just another boss. Only this time he has a worse
deal in one pocket and a rock in the other."
Industry analyst Mark Mulligan, a strong supporter of music streaming services, thinks Google has
become corrupted by absolute power. Google's actions wouldn't go very far in the marketplace if it
had not been for the weakening of copyright, he argues.
+Comment
A familiar argument over the past 15 years is that copyright is a regulatory-style impediment
wielded by large old companies to impede progress.
...New Man could get away with such actions as YouTube has attempted here: assuming control
of global digital distribution against the artist's consent.
... ... ...
VinceH
"Surely the uploader is violating her copyright? not Google."
Yes, but Google currently provides the Content ID system which allows such uploads to be identified
(although not perfectly) and the artist can then either earn a little money from it, or block it.
What the guy in Zoe's transcript said is that if she doesn't agree to the new terms so her
stuff's available on Music Key, she can't just carry on with the current system. Her own uploads will
be blocked, and content ID will no longer be available - she will no longer receive any earnings from
existing uploads by others that are recognised as containing her music, and she won't be able to use
it to identify such uploads.
So although it's the uploader who is technically violating her copyright, Google are making it
considerably harder for her to identify such violations - and when she does, the only option will
be a DMCA take down, rather than allow the upload to earn her money.
Agreeing to the Music Key terms obviously solves that problem - but there are pitfalls with
doing that, as explained in the David Lowery post Andrew linked, such as not being able to release
anything online anywhere else initially, which they may want to do for exclusive promotions etc.
Badvok
@Anon Coward: "Do try to read what is writ, @Badvok."
I did, you obviously didn't. See the bit about "content owner attached to the agreement" which
can be changed (as mentioned in the transcript) and if it was changed then nothing would be blocked.
She is still entitled to issue take downs for any Copyright infringements, Google will not automatically
pay her when someone uses her stuff, they'll just tell her that someone is doing so instead.
Badvok
@VinceH: "Her own uploads will be blocked, and content ID will no longer be available - she will
no longer receive any earnings from existing uploads by others that are recognised as containing her
music, and she won't be able to use it to identify such uploads."
Re-read that transcript, Content ID would still be available and she would still be able to
use the anti-piracy tracking for free.
Badvok
Yeah, totally evil that is, wanting to continue to pay an artist for their music even when someone
else uses it in their upload.
The only thing they are actually saying is that unless the artist signs up to the new service
terms then they'll stop paying the artist when someone else uses their content in an upload.
DavCrav
"unless the artist signs up to the new service terms then they'll stop paying the artist when
someone else uses their content in an upload."
You mean, violate her copyright with commercial infringement? OK, so glad you have confirmed that
Gootube is extorting her with threats of commercial copyright infringement if she doesn't sign.
Exactly the same as "nice little place you have here, shame if anything happened to it".
Anonymous Coward
Bullshit. From the transcript:
"...the content that you directly upload from accounts that you own under the content owner attached
to the agreement, we'll have to block that content."
So UNLESS SHE AGREES TO THESE NEW TERMS, Google not just stop giving her monies but also block
her access. But others, in clear breach of copyright, using her music is fine and dandy by Google
(again, not monetised back to the artist).
Do try to read what is writ, @Badvok.
h4rm0ny
>>"The only thing they are actually saying is that unless the artist signs up to the new service
terms then they'll stop paying the artist when someone else uses their content in an upload."
Isn't that thing actually quite a big thing? The artist in this case certainly seems to think so
and should Google be able to force people to accept their terms or let them do what they want anyway?
keithpeter
Re: "Don't be evil"
"According to her website her husband is sick with lung cancer.
Dealing with that and the Google corporation must be horrific."
Hence the comment on the transcript I imagine ("Youtube is not at the top of my priority list right
now").
So I just bought her most recent work as a 320 Kb/s mp3 download from the efficient and well organised
bandcamp Web shop. I suggest we all do the same.
cap'n
The new man
It always surprises me how enthusiastically the new 'man' in the shape of Google is greeted in
comparison to the virtual monopolies we had in the 90s and early 2000s. Google is far worse. It used
to just be you had one choice what OS to put on your computer, but nobody then really did much about
what you actually did with it after that. Google wants to control your phone, your computer, where
you find information and gradually virtually everything you do with a computer. The fact they use
a variety of open source software is not necessarily a positive, as shown here, appropriating the
work of others for free and then monetizing it is their primarily business model, they've just moved
on from just doing it with software, they now want to do the same with music and video rights.
auburnman
Re: The new man
The thing about Google at the minute is it's a dominant force in search - but it has very low lock-in
for the average guy in the street. If they keep on this path of screwing content creators and burning
goodwill they could be in for a massive disruptive shock.
To take Youtube as an example, there is nothing stopping a rival video service gaining massive
traction overnight. If my favourite Youtubers were to rebel en masse and defect to some new service
started by Amazon or NetFlix for example I'd follow them in a heartbeat - beyond the content it hosts
there is nothing keeping me loyal to Youtube.*
*And even a fair few reasons that would push me to switch - the video player itself is good, but
the rest of Youtube's layout can be a confusing PITA.
BillG
Re: The new man
Not just music & video rights. Images, documents, personal information and your first born.
And more than that. Ever read the book 1984? Google wants control for control's sake. Power for
the sale of power. People that think like that are the ultimate evil....
veti
Re: The new man
To the AC who believes that Google doesn't massage search results in its own favour: try the following
experiment.
Pick up a book by a well known author who died more than 75 years ago. (Charles Dickens is my go-to
choice for this purpose, but there are plenty more.) Open the book at random. Find a phrase that's
distinctive enough to be unique, but not profound enough to appear in anyone's collection of favourite
quotes. (From Dickens:
"'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!"
"wiped his corrugated forehead from left to right several times"
"Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises")
Then Google that phrase.
For the above 3 examples, there are lots of complete, easily-readable texts on the web. Yet
the second result, in each case (as tried by me just now), is the Google Books hit - which is
ugly and unreadable, and doesn't even link to a complete version of the text. (For the last of these,
nine of the top 10 results point to books.google.com, despite the fact that it's far and away the
least useful and accessible version on the web.)
ppawel
Re: The new man
The scariest thing in all of this is the fact that even though there are stories like this one,
when you discuss with most of the "regular people" about Google, their opinion is always the same
- it's the best thing ever. People love Google for GMail, Maps, Drive and you-name-whatever-service-they-provide-for-"free".
Businesses love Google for Google Apps for Business. Because it all "just works" and is pretty and
up-to-date etc. Hell, some people even donate their time and effort FOR FREE to Google - see Google
Map Maker. Why the hell would you do that instead of contributing to OpenStreetMap, I will never know...
Looks like we all have a love affair with Google. Nothing left but a happy ending, right?
Boy, are we all in for a very very rude awakening some day.
shaolin cookie
Re: About that 'low lock-in'
@The obvious
Right you are. I was just in China recently and to my surprise they had blocked Google entirely,
rather than just YouTube like earlier. I've already weaned my way out from Gmail and use StartPage
for search so thought it wouldn't matter much. But the likes of StartPage and DuckDuckGo use Google
results and are therefore also blocked, and no Play store on Android and no Google Maps were troublesome,
and while Baidu works well in Chinese, in English it's even worse than Bing, and that's saying a lot.
However, the main issue came from the many not Google-related sites including things like a small
Google map to find them, as such pages then took forever and a day to open. Felt relieved returning
and having Google back. Who would've thought?
mittfh
Re: The new man
Warner Music Group once blocked anything on YouTube containing its music (or music published by
its publishing arm Warner/Chappell Music) in a dispute over copyright / royalty payments, and even
threatened to not license its work to any free streaming site or to any video game as they were getting
peanuts.
However, because no credible alternative streaming site exists (at least partially because in order
to get up and running they'd need to implement something akin to Content ID to avoid annoying major
record labels), they eventually brokered a deal with YouTube.
It wouldn't surprise me if this new Google Music thingy is designed to keep the major record labels
sweet and negotiated on their terms and conditions, which favour them and disfavour independent /
unsigned artists.
Android has very weak security and is an easy target for security breaches. Any three latter agency
goes through android security like knife through the block of butter. Advertisement agencies with
their advertizing frameworks are the Trojan horse installed on PC, smartphones and most Websites. Essentially
they are mini-three letter agencies on thier own. And Google is the largest of them. Blocking Javascript
and wiping cookies on daily basis is the only way to ensure some minimum level of privacy, but even
this is not enough
British and Canadian spy agencies accumulated sensitive data on smartphone users, including
location, app preferences, and unique device identifiers, by piggybacking on ubiquitous software from
advertising and analytics companies, according to a document obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The document, included in a trove of Snowden material released by Der Spiegel on January 17, outlines
a secret program run by the intelligence agencies called BADASS. The German newsweekly did not write
about the BADASS document, attaching it to a broader article on cyberwarfare. According to The Intercept's
analysis of the document, intelligence agents applied BADASS software filters to streams of intercepted
internet traffic, plucking from that traffic unencrypted uploads from smartphones to servers run by
advertising and analytics companies.
Programmers frequently embed code from a handful of such companies into their smartphone apps because
it helps them answer a variety of questions: How often does a particular user open the app, and at
what time of day? Where does the user live? Where does the user work? Where is the user right now?
What's the phone's unique identifier? What version of Android or iOS is the device running? What's
the user's IP address? Answers to those questions guide app upgrades and help target advertisements,
benefits that help explain why tracking users is not only routine in the tech industry but also considered
a best practice.
For users, however, the smartphone data routinely provided to ad and analytics companies represents
a major privacy threat. When combined together, the information fragments can be used to identify specific
users, and when concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies, they have proven to be irresistibly
convenient targets for those engaged in mass surveillance. Although the BADASS presentation appears
to be roughly four years old, at least one player in the mobile advertising and analytics space, Google,
acknowledges that its servers still routinely receive unencrypted uploads from Google code embedded
in apps.
For spy agencies, this smartphone monitoring data represented a new, convenient way of learning
more about surveillance targets, including information about their physical movements and digital activities.
It also would have made it possible to design more focused cyberattacks against those people, for example
by exploiting a weakness in a particular app known to be used by a particular person. Such scenarios
are strongly hinted at in a 2010 NSA presentation, provided by agency whistleblower Edward Snowden
and published last year in The New York Times, Pro Publica, and The Guardian. That presentation
stated that smartphone monitoring would be useful because it could lead to "additional exploitation"
and the unearthing of "target knowledge/leads, location, [and] target technology."
The 2010 presentation, along with additional documents from Britain's intelligence service Government
Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, showed that the intelligence agencies were aggressively ramping
up their efforts to see into the world of mobile apps. But the specifics of how they might distill
useful information from the torrent of internet packets to and from smartphones remained unclear.
Encrypting Data in Transit
The BADASS slides fill in some of these blanks. They appear to have been presented in 2011 at the
highly secretive SIGDEV intelligence community conference. The presentation states that "analytics
firm Flurry estimates that 250,000 Motorola Droid phones were sold in the United States during the
phone's first week in stores," and asks, "how do they know that?"
The answer is that during the week in question, Flurry uploaded to its own servers analytics from
Droid phones on behalf of app developers, one phone at a time, and stored the analytics in their own
databases. Analytics includes any information that is available to the app and that can conceivably
help improve it, including, in certain instances with Flurry, the user's age and gender, physical location,
how long they left the app open, and a unique identifier for the phone, according to Flurry materials
included in the BADASS document.
By searching these databases, the company was able to get a count of Droid phones running Flurry-enabled
apps and, by extrapolating, estimate the total number of Droids in circulation. The company can find
similar information about any smartphone that their analytics product supports.
Not only was Flurry vacuuming sensitive data up to its servers, it was doing so insecurely. When
a smartphone app collects data about the device it's running on and sends it back to a tracking company,
it generally uses the HTTP protocol, and Flurry-enabled apps were no exception. But HTTP is inherently
insecure-eavesdroppers can easily spy on the entire digital conversation.
If the tracking data was always phoned home using the HTTPS protocol-the same as the HTTP protocol,
except that the stream of traffic between the phone and the server is encrypted-then the ability for
spy agencies to collect tracking data with programs like BADASS would be severely impeded.
Yahoo, which acquired the analytics firm Flurry in late 2014, says that since acquiring the company
they have "implemented default encryption between Flurry-enabled applications and Flurry servers. The
2010 report in question does not apply to current versions of Flurry's analytics product." Given that
Yahoo acquired Flurry so recently, it's unclear how many apps still use Flurry's older tracking code
that sends unencrypted data back to Yahoo's servers. (Yahoo declined to elaborate specifically on that
topic.)
The BADASS slides also use Google's advertisement network AdMob as an example of intercepted, unencrypted
data. Free smartphone apps are often supported by ads, and if the app uses AdMob then it sends some
identifying information to AdMob's servers while loading the ad. Google currently supports the ability
for app developers to turn on HTTPS for ad requests, however it's clear that only some AdMob users
actually do this.
When asked about HTTPS support for AdMob, a Google spokesperson said, "We continue our ongoing efforts
to encrypt all Google products and services."
In addition to Yahoo's Flurry and Google's AdMob, the BADASS presentation also shows that British
and Canadian intelligence were targeting Mobclix, Mydas, Medialets, and MSN Mobile Advertising. But
it's clear that any mobile-related plaintext traffic from any company is a potential target. While
the BADASS presentation focuses on traffic from analytics and ad companies, it also shows spying on
Google Maps heartbeat traffic, and capturing "beacons" sent out when apps are first opened (listing
Qriously, Com2Us, Fluentmobile, and Papayamobile as examples). The BADASS presentation also mentions
capturing GPS coordinates that get leaked when opening BlackBerry's app store.
In a boilerplate statement, GCHQ said, "It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence
matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy
framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that
there is rigorous oversight." Its Canadian counterpart, Communications Security Establishment Canada,
or CSEC, responded with a statement that read, in part, "For reasons of national security, CSE cannot
comment on its methods, techniques or capabilities. CSE conducts foreign intelligence and cyber defence
activities in compliance with Canadian law."
Julia Angwin, who has doggedly investigated online privacy issues as a journalist and author, most
recently of the book "Dragnet Nation," explains that "every type of unique identifier that passes [over
the internet] unencrypted is giving away information about users to anyone who wants it," and that
"the evidence is clear that it's very risky to be throwing unique identifiers out there in the clear.
Anyone can grab them. This is more evidence that no one should be doing that."
Building Haystacks to Search for Needles
The BADASS program was created not merely to track advertising and analytic data but to solve a
much bigger problem: There is an overwhelming amount of smartphone tracking data being collected
by intelligence agencies, and it's difficult to make sense of.
First there are the major platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. On each platform,
a range of hardware and platform versions are in use. Additionally, app stores are overflowing; new
apps that track people get released every day. Old apps constantly get updated to track people in different
ways, and people use different versions of apps for different platforms all at once. Adding to the
diversity, there are several different ad and analytics companies that app developers use, and when
those companies send tracking data back to their servers, they use a wide variety of formats.
With such an unwieldy haystack of data, GCHQ and CSEC, started the BADASS program, according to
the presentation, to find the needles: information that can uniquely identify people and their
devices, such as smartphone identifiers, tracking cookies, and other unique strings, as well as personally
identifying information like GPS coordinates and email addresses.
BADASS is an an acryonym that stands for BEGAL Automated Deployment And Survey System. (It is not
clear what "BEGAL" stands for, in turn.) The slideshow presentation is called "Mobile apps doubleheader:
BADASS Angry Birds," and promises "protocols exploitation in a rapidly changing world."
Exploiting Protocols in a Rapidly Changing World
Analysts are able to write BADASS "rules" that look for specific types of tracking information as
it travels across the internet.
For example, when someone opens an app that loads an ad, their phone normally sends an unencrypted
web request (called an HTTP request) to the ad network's servers. If this request gets intercepted
by spy agencies and fed into the BADASS program, it then gets filtered through each rule to see if
one applies to the request. If it finds a match, BADASS can then automatically pull out the juicy information.
In the following slide, the information that is potentially available in a single HTTP request to
load an ad includes which platform the ad is being loaded on (Android, iOS, etc.), the unique identifier
of the device, the IMEI number which cell towers use to identify phones that try to connect to them,
the name and version of the operating system that's running, the model of the device, and latitude
and longitude location data.
Similar information is sent across the internet in HTTP requests in several different formats depending
on what company it's being sent to, what device it's running on, and what version of the ad or analytics
software is being used. Because this is constantly changing, analysts can write their own BADASS rules
to capture all of the permutations they can find.
The following slide shows part of the BADASS user interface, and a partial list of rules.
The slideshow includes a section called "Abusing BADASS for Fun and Profit" which goes into detail
about the methodology analysts use to write new BADASS rules.
By looking at intercepted HTTP traffic and writing rules to parse it, analysts can quickly gather
as much information as possibly from leaky smartphone apps. One slide states: "Creativity, iterative
testing, domain knowledge, and the right tools can help us target multiple platforms in a very short
time period."
Privacy Policies That Don't Deliver
The slides also appear to mock the privacy promises of ad and analytics companies.
Companies that collect usage statistics about software often insist that the data is anonymous because
they don't include identifying information such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses of the
users that they're tracking. But in reality, sending unique device identifiers, IP addresses, IMEI
numbers, and GPS coordinates of devices is far from anonymous.
In one slide, the phrase "anonymous usage statistics" appears in conspicuous quotation marks. The
spies are well aware that despite not including specific types of information, the data they collect
from leaky smartphone apps is enough for them to uniquely identify their targets.
The following slides show a chunk of Flurry's privacy policy (at this point it has been replaced
by Yahoo's privacy policy), which states what information it collects from devices and how it believes
this is anonymous.
The red box, which is present in the original slides, highlights this part: "None of this information
can identify the individual. No names, phone numbers, email addresses, or anything else considered
personally identifiable information is ever collected."
Clearly the intelligence services disagree.
"Commercial surveillance often appears very benign," Angwin says. "The reason Flurry exists is not
to 'spy on people' but to help people learn who's using their apps. But what we've also seen through
Snowden revelations is that spy agencies seek to use that for their own purposes."
The Web has the Exact Same Problems
While the BADASS program is specifically designed to target smartphone traffic, websites suffer
from these exact same problems, and in many cases they're even worse.
Websites routinely include bits of tracking code from several different companies for ads, analytics,
and other behavioral tracking. This, combined with the lack of HTTPS, turns your web browser into
a surveillance device that follows you around, even if you switch networks or use proxy servers.
In other words, while the BADASS presentation may be four years old, and while it's been a year and
a half since Snowden's leaks began educating technology companies and users about the massive privacy
threats they face, the big privacy holes exploited by BADASS remain a huge problem.
Google's Gmail was blocked in China after months of disruptions to the world's biggest email service,
with an anti-censorship advocate suggesting the country's "great firewall" was to blame.
Large numbers of Gmail web addresses were cut off in China on Friday, according to GreatFire.org,
a China-based freedom of speech advocacy group. Users said the service was still down on Monday.
"I think the government is just trying to further eliminate Google's presence in China and even
weaken its market overseas," said a member of the group who uses a pseudonym. "Imagine if Gmail users
might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away
from Gmail."
Google is set to shut down its Russia-based engineering team, pulling its team of more than 50
engineers, who will be able to transfer to Google offices elsewhere.
"We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers, and we have a dedicated team in Russia
working to support them," Aaron Stein, a Google spokesman wrote to Ars in an e-mailed statement.
Stein confirmed the move, which was first reported by The Information.
On Thursday, Google pulled the plug on Google News in Spain rather than pay Spanish publishers
a licensing fee.
The move comes a few months after Russia passed a new law, taking effect in September 2016,
that will require data held on Russian citizens to be kept in-country.
...the European Parliament weighing in and asking the Commission to consider forcing Google to unbundle
search from its other services in order to resolve the competition case.
... ... ...
The competition case against the search giant has been dragging on for more than three years now,
as the previous Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia repeatedly tried and failed to find a compromise
amid claims that Google was unfairly favouring its own services in search results.
Google's success in "assassinating" a
democratically-elected legal opponent last week raises troubling questions about corporate power and
accountability. The feisty attorney for the USA's poorest state is now trying to make peace, after
being on the receiving end of a
highly unusual lawsuit from Google.
Even if you will have no truck with the pigopolists of Hollywood, you should know the facts. A global
corporation which is expected to bank $60bn in revenue this year and which is worth $382bn, has silenced
an elected prosecutor.
Google's income is 30 times that of the General Fund in Mississippi; its market valuation is four
times the entire state's GDP. What did Jim Hood do to make himself Google's enemy? You may be surprised
by the answer, which, it turns out, has nothing to do with Hollywood.
Let's examine what happened to him - and what questions it raises.
How did Jim Hood become Google's Public Enemy No.1?
In the US, citizens vote for their state prosecutors – they're elected representatives, not nominees.
They answer to the people. Google, obviously, is not democratically accountable; it's a multinational
corporation. The nature of its work means it is constantly pushing the boundaries of the law, particularly
wherever the ownership or use of data is in dispute. And Google pushes hard.
So hard, in fact, that earlier this year it was accused of running "a floating kingdom undisturbed
by any and all nation-states and their laws". German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(pdf,
24 pages, English) added: "Expropriation and exploitation of the data of a continually monitored
society is the first rule of informational capitalism. Google is in the process of creating a supra-state."
In the UK, for example, Google has argued the UK has
no jurisdiction over the company.
But shouldn't such global information processing corporations, of which Google is the largest and
most famous, be held to account by the people? In the US, state prosecutors have a feisty tradition.
Twenty of them pursued Microsoft – then went after the federal government for making what they considered
an overly cosy settlement. The state attorneys thought the DoJ had sold out.
New York's attorney Eliot Spitzer
went after ten of the USA's largest corporations, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and CSFB
for their role in creating the dotcom bubble: publishing fraudulent "research" that hyped worthless
internet stocks. The ten contributed over $1.4bn in "relief" and agreed to a range of new regulations.
Again, it was the states' attorneys tackling corporate power; the George W Bush administration wasn't
interested.
Ten years ago the good citizens of Mississippi voted in a Democrat state attorney general called
Jim Hood. Hood is certainly in
the combative tradition: he's a well-liked Democrat in a Republican state, and had shown himself
to be a fearless prosecutor. Hood had gone after the KKK and he'd gone after Big Pharma. That took
him into new territory. Hood was appalled at what he saw.
For years, Google had profited from the advertising of rogue pharmacies, many of which were selling
dangerous fake drugs. It did so despite being warned to stop. And promising to stop. Only a joint FBI-FDA
sting busted the operation, and the bust, alleged the prosecutors, showed that the operation went far
beyond a handful of sales staff, as one state AG
says.
"Larry Page knew what was going on," state AG Peter Neronha
claimed
to the Wall Street Journal. The settlement saw Google pay out $500m in forfeiture in return
for a non-prosecution agreement.
Hood became engaged when he looked at the settlement itself. Google continued to profit from rogue
sites. For example, Google helpfully completed the query "buy oxycodone" into "buy oxycodone online
no prescription cod". Hood asked why, if Google could amend its results in response to governments
around the world, it couldn't amend them to protect Mississippians? In June last year his department
issued subpoenas. Hood also went after Google over privacy issues, including the Safari data slurp,
winning the attorneys general
$17m, and collected a payout over its WiFi sniffing. He also mentioned other rogue sites.
And that tiny part of his work would become big news – in really disturbing circumstances, last
week.
... ... ...
Bear in mind that
Google
has overtaken Goldman Sachs as a political campaign contributor: it is in the real big leagues
of politico-financial muscle in the USA. Google
now spends more on lobbying, according to Think Progress, than any other US company.
... ... ...
What Hood wants to know is how Google is complying with a legally-binding settlement. And he's
curious to know whether
advertisers are being skimmed - as whistleblowers have long alleged. This is certainly of
interest to small businesses, typically "mom and pop" shops, that use Google's Adsense. That's the
only area where one can argue Hood "opens up a new front" against Google - and he's seeking more than
compliance. And, given the economic interests of poor Missippians and the fact the USA is reluctant
to apply fraud or consumer protection laws against Google, it's hard to see why he shouldn't.
... ... ...
Google's strategy appears intimidatory: any attempt to attack its economic interests in the Age
of Google will be met with innuendo, smears and ultimately lawsuits that nobody can afford to fight.
That's some "chilling effect".
... ... ...
Google and Facebook are increasingly resembling "suprastates" to whom national - and perhaps international
- law doesn't apply. But if you think that replacing laws with a free-for-all leads to anything other
than the strong crushing the weak, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Nice theory but I don't buy it. Gmail is the thing that gets us to creates the user accounts
that give Google some means to link our activities to a person and that encourages us to log in, think
of it as the loss leaders. We sell our soul to Google for their shiny web email.
In return for which they can link gchat, web searches, google circles, youtube and whatever else
crosses their path to track us, understand us and help market to us. With Google we are the commodity
not the customer.
They don't make money out of us, they use us to make money. If I didn't have Gmail, I wouldn't
log into google cause I don't care about being identifiable to all those other services... but once
I am in they can tie it all together across all my devices. Good use of a loss leader in my book.
Charles Moone, MBA, PMP
David, Your comments are very insightful.
During Google's startup one of the creators openly said that Google's purpose was to know everything
possible about the people using the service. Google is not about enhancing communication between
people. It is about gathering indicators of behavior and determining how this individual behavior
and the associated links to people, places, and things can be used to create a commercial giant.
A new security feature for Google's services will help users better protect their data by requiring
that they insert a USB security key to log in to their account.
Announced on Tuesday, the
optional Security Key technology requires that a Chrome user take two additional steps to sign
in to their Google account: plug a small key into the USB port on their computer and tap a button.
The process is a simpler and more secure version of the
2-Step Verification process that Google
offers to security-conscious users. With 2-Step Verification, users receive a code from Google on their
phone or in e-mail that they must enter into Google's site to complete the login process.
Users that opt for the Security Key technology will have to purchase a special USB key, which typically
costs less than $20.
"Rather than typing a code, just insert Security Key into your computer's USB port and tap it when
prompted in Chrome," Nishit Shah, product manager for Google Security, wrote
in a blog post on the new technology. "When you sign into your Google Account using Chrome
and Security Key, you can be sure that the cryptographic signature cannot be phished."
Google's Security Key is one of the first public applications of the Fast Identity Online (FIDO)
Alliance's universal second-factor experience, or U2F. The FIDO Alliance is a group of nearly 120 companies,
including
Microsoft and Google but not Apple, that supports better online security through open technologies.
A user of the technology can use the same key to help secure the login process with any supporting
service provider.
The FIDO Alliance cheered Google's announcement on Tuesday. "There is no doubt that a new era has
arrived," Michael Barrett, president of the FIDO Alliance, said
in a statement. "We are
starting to move users and providers alike beyond single-factor passwords to more secure, private,
easy-to-use FIDO authentication."
The hardware key-a thin slice of plastic containing a chip for handling encryption keys and contacts
to slide into a computer's USB slot-costs less than $20 and can be used in other applications that
support U2F security, according to the FIDO Alliance. The key contains a chip known as the "secure
element"-a hardware component commonly used in smart-card applications and designed to securely hold
and process encryption keys. During the initial registration of the key to the service provider, a
pair of encryption keys are created: a public key sent to the provider and a private key held by the
Security Key. When using a supporting browser, the website sends an encrypted challenge, which the
key decrypts and then responds with an encrypted reply.
In many ways, the key is similar to
the chip-and-PIN technology that is starting to be adopted by banks and merchants to defeat credit
card fraud.
By using the key along with a supporting browser and service, phishing attacks, keylogging, and
man-in-the-middle attacks become nearly impossible, Jerrod Chong, vice president of solutions engineering
for access-technology provider Yubico, told Ars.
"Any attacker will not be able to get information useful for logging into an account," Chong said.
"If the system is compromised, this will not protect against (data leakage)," he added. "Instead,
what it is designed to prevent is the most widely seen attack against users: phishing-tricking
the users into doing something that they do not want to do."
The Security Key works with Google Chrome and Google's service to verify the identity of the website,
which sends an encrypted challenge. After receiving and decrypting the challenge, it responds with
a signed authentication token.
Google acknowledged that until there is wider support for U2F, users may want to stick with Google's
2-Step Verification, especially if they typically use Web services from their mobile devices or use
a browser other than Chrome.
Twitter's mobile ad arm lets clients use a hidden tracking number created by Verizon.
Wired and
Forbes reported earlier this week that the two largest cell phone carriers in the United States,
Verizon and AT&T, are adding the tracking number to their subscribers' Internet activity, even when
users opt out. The data can be used by any site-even those with no relationship to the telecoms-to
build a dossier about a person's behavior on mobile devices, including which apps they use, what sites
they visit, and how long. MoPub, acquired by Twitter in 2013, bills itself as the "world's largest
mobile ad exchange." It uses Verizon's tag to track and target cellphone users for ads, according to
instructions for software developers
posted on its website.
Nilt
Quote:
Google has proposed a new Internet protocol called SPDY that would prevent these types of header
injections, much to the dismay of many telecom companies who are lobbying against it. In May, a Verizon
executive made a presentation describing how Google's proposal could "limit value-add services that
are based on access to header" information.
I remember that talk back in May. At the time I wondered how long until we learned more about that.
I guess we now know.
S_T_RArs
For those not aware, Google's SPDY is the basis of HTTP/2 (formerly HTTP 2.0). It's not identical,
but will keep the "fixed" header from SPDY that these ISPs have been abusing. It's due for adoption
in the next year, so this avenue of data mining is going to close quicker than DeviceID did the last
time around.
Ad Blocker
Quote:
Wired and Forbes reported earlier this week that the two largest cell phone carriers in the
United States, Verizon and AT&T, are adding the tracking number to their subscribers' Internet activity,
even when users opt out.
This sentence probably would have made more sense if you had not omitted the preceding sentence
from the original article:
Quote:
Twitter's mobile advertising arm enables its clients to use a hidden, undeletable tracking
number created by Verizon to track user behavior on smartphones and tablets.
Americans may not like the fact that the National Security Agency is collecting data on their phone
calls and emails, but it turns out they are even more concerned over another surveillance threat: Google.
In a survey conducted by the consumer feedback service Survata, the company asked internet users just
how angry they would be if they discovered various groups or individuals had gained access to essentially
all of their personal data online.
"To evaluate this, we polled over 2,500 respondents with two surveys - one gauging concern
with the NSA and a corporation like Google gaining access to personal data, and one with bosses, significant
others, and parents," the company wrote online. "Overall, the results show respondents were
most concerned by a company like Google gaining this access, as shown by the average level of concern."
Survey participants responded to these questions by choosing a number between one to 10, with one
meaning they would not care and 10 meaning they would be "extremely upset."
In response to the idea that Google would gain access to their data, the average score was 7.39.
For comparison, the average score regarding the NSA was 7.06.
Meanwhile, in the event that their boss gained access to their data, respondents scored the possibility
with a 6.85. The prospect of the participants' parents snooping on their digital life received a 5.93.
In a statement to CNET, Survata co-founder Chris Kelly said the company did not expect to see the
results it did.
"Survata was surprised to see respondents said they'd be more upset with a company like Google
seeing their personal data than the NSA," he said. "We did not ask respondents for the reasons
or motivations behind their answers; so we can only conjecture based on our previous research. One
guess is that respondents assume the NSA is only looking for 'guilty' persons when scouring personal
data, whereas a company like Google would use personal data to serve ads or improve their own products."
Still, CNET's Chris Matyszczyk noted that most of the survey takers were between the ages of 13
and 44, a group that has typically been the most willing to give up its personal data to social media
giants and other digital application developers.
"If these results are to be believed, then humanity is rife with those who speak out of several
sides of their mouth," he wrote. "On the one hand, we claim to fear Google most, yet we allow
it, Facebook and the like to crawl over our daily routines and information like summer flies enjoying
a rancid grapefruit."
That sentiment has been echoed by other prominent voices, notably NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Earlier this month, Snowden called networks like Facebook and
Google "dangerous" for being hostile to privacy and not allowing encrypted messages.
In September, meanwhile, Assange compared Google to the NSA, saying it generates revenue by gathering
and selling individuals' data.
"Google's business model is the spy. It makes more than 80 percent of its money by collecting
information about people, pooling it together, storing it, indexing it, building profiles of people
to predict their interests and behavior, and then selling those profiles principally to advertisers,
but also others," he said.
"So the result is that Google, in terms of how it works, its actual practice, is almost identical
to the National Security Agency or GCHQ."
Schmidt arrived first, accompanied by his then partner, Lisa Shields. When he introduced
her as a vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations-a U.S. foreign-policy think tank with close
ties to the State Department - I thought little more of it. Shields herself was straight out of Camelot,
having been spotted by John Kennedy Jr.'s side back in the early 1990s.
They sat with me and we exchanged pleasantries. They said they had forgotten their Dictaphone,
so we used mine. We made an agreement that I would forward them the recording and in exchange they
would forward me the transcript, to be corrected for accuracy and clarity. We began. Schmidt plunged
in at the deep end, straightaway quizzing me on the organizational and technological underpinnings
of WikiLeaks.
* * *
Some time later Jared Cohen arrived. With him was Scott Malcomson, introduced as the book's
editor. Three months after the meeting Malcomson would enter the State Department as the lead speechwriter
and principal advisor to Susan Rice (then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, now national security
advisor).
At this point, the delegation was one part Google, three parts U.S. foreign-policy establishment,
but I was still none the wiser. Handshakes out of the way, we got down to business.
Schmidt was a good foil. A late-fiftysomething, squint-eyed behind owlish spectacles,
managerially dressed-Schmidt's dour appearance concealed a machinelike analyticity. His questions often
skipped to the heart of the matter, betraying a powerful nonverbal structural intelligence.
It was the same intellect that had abstracted software-engineering principles to scale
Google into a megacorp, ensuring that the corporate infrastructure always met the rate of growth. This
was a person who understood how to build and maintain systems: systems of information and systems of
people. My world was new to him, but it was also a world of unfolding human processes, scale and information
flows.
For a man of systematic intelligence, Schmidt's politics-such as I could hear from our
discussion-were surprisingly conventional, even banal. He grasped structural relationships quickly,
but struggled to verbalize many of them, often shoehorning geopolitical subtleties into Silicon Valley
marketese or the ossified State Department micro-language of his companions. He was at his best when
he was speaking (perhaps without realizing it) as an engineer, breaking down complexities into their
orthogonal components.
I found Cohen a good listener, but a less interesting thinker, possessed of that relentless
conviviality that routinely afflicts career generalists and Rhodes Scholars. As you would expect from
his foreign-policy background, Cohen had a knowledge of international flash points and conflicts and
moved rapidly between them, detailing different scenarios to test my assertions. But it sometimes felt
as if he was riffing on orthodoxies in a way that was designed to impress his former colleagues in
official Washington.
Malcomson, older, was more pensive, his input thoughtful and generous. Shields was quiet
for much of the conversation, taking notes, humoring the bigger egos around the table while she got
on with the real work.
As the interviewee, I was expected to do most of the talking. I sought to guide them into
my worldview. To their credit, I consider the interview perhaps the best I have given. I was out of
my comfort zone and I liked it.
We ate and then took a walk in the grounds, all the while on the record. I asked Eric
Schmidt to leak U.S. government information requests to WikiLeaks, and he refused, suddenly nervous,
citing the illegality of disclosing Patriot Act requests. And then, as the evening came on, it was
done and they were gone, back to the unreal, remote halls of information empire, and I was left to
get back to my work.
That was the end of it, or so I thought.
* * *
Two months later, WikiLeaks' release of State Department cables was coming to an abrupt
end. For three-quarters of a year we had painstakingly managed the publication, pulling in over a hundred
global media partners, distributing documents in their regions of influence and overseeing a worldwide,
systematic publication and redaction system, fighting for maximum impact for our sources.
But The Guardian newspaper-our former partner-had published the confidential
decryption password to all 251,000 cables in a chapter heading in its book,
rushed out hastily in February 2011.
By mid-August we discovered that a former German employee-whom I had suspended in 2010-was
cultivating business relationships with a variety of organizations and individuals by shopping around
the location of the encrypted file, paired with the password's whereabouts in the book. At the rate
the information was spreading, we estimated that within two weeks most intelligence agencies, contractors
and middlemen would have all the cables, but the public would not.
I decided it was necessary to bring forward our publication schedule by four months and
contact the State Department to get it on record that we had given them advance warning. The situation
would then be harder to spin into another legal or political assault.
Unable to raise Louis Susman, then U.S. ambassador to the U.K., we tried the front door.
WikiLeaks investigations editor Sarah Harrison called the State Department front desk and informed
the operator that "Julian Assange" wanted to have a conversation with Hillary Clinton. Predictably,
this statement was initially greeted with bureaucratic disbelief.
We soon found ourselves in a reenactment of that scene in Dr. Strangelove, where Peter
Sellers cold-calls the White House to warn of an impending nuclear war and is immediately put on hold.
As in the film, we climbed the hierarchy, speaking to incrementally more superior officials until we
reached Clinton's senior legal advisor. He told us he would call us back. We hung up, and waited.
When the phone rang half an hour later, it was not the State Department on the other end
of the line. Instead, it was Joseph Farrell, the WikiLeaks staffer who had set up the meeting with
Google. He had just received an email from Lisa Shields seeking to confirm that it was indeed WikiLeaks
calling the State Department.
It was at this point that I realized Eric Schmidt might not have been an emissary
of Google alone. Whether officially or not, he had been keeping some company that placed him very
close to Washington, D.C., including a well-documented relationship with President Obama. Not only
had Hillary Clinton's people known that Eric Schmidt's partner had visited me, but they had also elected
to use her as a back channel.
While WikiLeaks had been deeply involved in publishing the inner archive of the U.S. State
Department, the U.S. State Department had, in effect, snuck into the WikiLeaks command center and hit
me up for a free lunch. Two years later, in the wake of his early 2013 visits to China, North Korea
and Burma, it would come to be appreciated that the chairman of Google might be conducting, in one
way or another, "back-channel diplomacy" for Washington. But at the time
it was a novel thought.
Let's start with your meeting with Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. In your book, you write
that on a personal level those people are very nice, but if the future of the Internet will be controlled
by Google, then everyone should worry. Why you came to this conclusion?
"Over the last 15 years, Google has grown inside the internet as a parasite. Internet browsing,
social networking, maps, satellites, drones -- Google on your phone, on your desktop, it is invading
every aspect of our lives: all relations from personal to commercial.
At this point, we can say that Google has a real power over anyone who uses the Internet, and that
means pretty much anyone in the modern world. As Google becoming bigger and bigger, it became
more and more dangerous. In my book I explained now it is aligned with American foreign policy. This
means for example that Google may intervene in the interests of the United States, may end up compromising
the privacy of selected people, can use the power of advertising for the purposes of propaganda.
Countries such as Russia and China - and this can be seen by reading the cables from US embassies
that we have released are now looking at Google as an instrument of the United States government. This
attitude goes as far back as 2009. Unfortunately their solution (Russia and China, ed) is to
create local monopolies. Google sucks the personal data of every single person is building an endless
pool of information that is of great interest to the American government.
Accordingly, the government has entered in alliance with Google to access this database. And Google
will never change the way it operates, because its business model is to collect as much data as possible
about the people and centralize and process the data in such a way as to find effective model for targeted
advertising. Which is almost exactly what NSA does.
You describe Eric Schmidt as a character "for whom centrist and liberal imperialist inclinations
feet perfectly well into the US foreign policy." What kind of world Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen are
building for us?
"Schmidt and Cohen have published a book that has been largely ignored, but which is extremely revealing.
It's called "The
New Digital Age" and this book outlines their vision of the future: a world of endless consumerism
and escapism, where the ideal consumer goes around with Google Gadgets, "by swiping your finger" and
"sharing" and everything is wonderful. Schmidt and Cohen believe that in the Western world there is
no more need for privacy, because governments are inherently "good", responsible for collecting and
using the information to better manage their citizens. "
She writes that Google was born as an expression of independent culture of Graduates of
Universities of California, a culture which is decent, humane, funny, but eventually became "the empire
of do no harm." What has caused Google to become so evil?
"Google started out as an expression of student culture that hovered around the universities
of Stanford and Berkeley. Decent, funny and politically naive but because, in the final analysis,
the fact that it has become the second largest company in the United States, Google has become evil.
Like so many other American companies, Google has been trying to expand into foreign markets, and at
this point it became dependent on the advice and lobbying capacities of the State Department and other
U.S. government entities. That dependence has led to extensive contacts and personal alliances between
the management of Google, Eric Schmidt included, and American government."
Do you believe that China and Russia will fight strenuously against the empire of Google?
"Yes, they are slow, but the locals are shocked when they realize what is happening, because there
is no need to physically subdue a nation (to control it, ed) when you dominates the information sphere
and you can influence the laws of that nation through international treaties. Google's dominance is
seen by countries such as China and Russia as a matter of national sovereignty. In China you can see
how they are building local internet services. You may think that Russia and China are wicked nations,
but they are the only with a power to prevent extreme abuses that we have seen in case of the NSA.
The interaction between Google, the American foreign policy establishment and the intelligence is largely
based on understanding each other and is carried out through the use of force, coercion, when you can
not rely on voluntary cooperation, as it has been revealed recently with Yahoo, which in 2008 was put
under pressure by the NSA that would give access to the data of its customers under the threat of a
fine of $250,000 a day."
What you can reply to those who claim that Google still is "the empire of do no harm", but China
and Russia are not exactly the champions of freedom of the Net
"China was the first nation to censor WikiLeaks: It happened in 2007. This is a highly politicized
nation and is afraid of what his people think. But in a sense, this is the optimistic view, because
China believes that what Chinese people think is important, however, in many Western nations freedom
of speech is the result of the fact that what people think does not matter at all: the ruling elites
do not need to be worried about what people think because any internal change will not affect the elite
or their companies. The problems with China and Russia are completely internal.
What you can reply to those who argues that we need mass surveillance that the NSA has set up
through collaboration with Google, because the fanatics of the ISIS are the perfect demonstration of
how our democracies can come under the mortal danger?
"Our democracies are in mortal danger to the totalitarianism that is upon them because of mass surveillance:
a power that be able to control every significant social and economic interaction."
Among other things, despite intercept of messages from billions of people, they seem to have been
unable to prevent any important attack, or predict the rise of the ISIS...
"The primary purpose of mass surveillance is a strategic advantage (which the nation that practice
it obtains, ed) and, in fact, this practice internally is called "strategic oversight ". The NSA intercepts
entire continents exactly as for the same purpose as the last 70 years -- this is the same great game
to control the oil and the countries involved in its production: you can see this with the events in
Ukraine."
The United States will never give up mass surveillance. But the man who has exposed the global
espionage also does not give up. It explains his struggle against the power that be to save democracy.
You and your staff you have been able to withstand all kinds of pressure: death threats, investigations
and block of financial transactions by the court. In your book you tell how Wikileaks was able to ease
the pressure of the blocking of financial transactions through a strategic investment in Bitcoin. And
even while confined to the embassy, was able to assist Edward Snowden, sending in Hong Kong Sarah Harrison,
who helped Snowden to obtain asylum. Yet, you are still confined to the embassy, Sarah Harrison is
in exile, Chelsea Manning in prison and Edward Snowden has no place to hide except Russia. Do you think
we will have new Manning and Snowden, given the high prices paid by past whistleblowers, you and your
staff?
Yes, I'm virtually certain. We have intervened and we organized an operation to assist Snowden,
bringing him safely to Hong Kong because we wanted to make a case to send the message that it is possible
to reveal this kind of information, yet retain much personal freedom intact. And certainly this message
encourages and motivates other whistleblowers.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange equated Google with the National Security Agency and GCHQ, saying
the tech giant has become "a privatized version of the NSA," as it collects, stores, and indexes people's
data. He made his remarks to BBC and Sky News.
"Google's business model is the spy. It makes
more than 80 percent of its money by collecting information about people, pooling it together, storing
it, indexing it, building profiles of people to predict their interests and behavior, and then selling
those profiles principally to advertisers, but also others," Assange told BBC.
"So the result is that Google, in terms of how it works, its actual practice, is almost identical
to the National Security Agency or GCHQ," the whistleblower argued.
'Google deeply involved in US foreign policy'
Google has been working with the NSA "in terms of contracts since at least 2002," Assange
told Sky News.
"They are formally listed as part of the defense industrial base since 2009. They have been
engaged with the Prism system, where nearly all information collected by Google is available to the
NSA," Assange said. "At the institutional level, Google is deeply involved in US foreign policy."
Google has tricked people into believing that it is "a playful, humane organization" and
not a "big, bad US corporation," Assange told BBC. "But in fact it has become just that...it
is now arguably the most influential commercial organization."
"Google has now spread to every country, every single person, who has access to the internet,"
he reminded.
PeoplesParadigm
Google IS the NSA. It benefits from contracts and subsidies to build out infrastructure that makes
both agencies the same, as part of the larger picture of NWO. It is not desirable or in The People's
interest and will be very hard to dismantle once upon us.
Quit Google now and you'll slow it down. Teach your children right from wrong and to develop new
humanist technologies that don't fall into military or corprotocratic hands and we may succeed in
getting rid of this filth.
johnny
Anyone who uses google for anything, other than an occasional search from a public computer, needs
to get their head examined.
And anyone who believes that two young jews from a university came up with an idea how to make
billions and did so with no government involvement, also needs a brain scan.
johnny
We used to have feudalism and to a large extend we still have it - only this time it is "voluntary"
and involves ownership of things other than land. We also had capitalism, but that's now old fashioned.
Communism - meh, only in N. korea and they won't last forever.
Finally, we advanced to the last stage before the totalitarian self-destruction: Corporatism.
All of the above have one thing in common: illusion of equality of opportunity. It goes like this:
Big fish meets a small one:
- Hi small fish, we are now all equal, so try to eat me.
- ... (small fish opens its tiny mouth, but can't even bite the big fish)
- OK, now, let me try to eat you... gulp.
Durandus von Meissen
The attack upon Society, which the 'war on terror' represents, speaks to the fear which can be
instilled in the leading intellectuals and political/religious leaders of civilization across the
globe. Of course, it's NOT about security; but about the suppression of Dissent across the whole gamut
of Society.
In the end, if you can make The People fearful of speaking their own minds and banding together
thereby against the common Treachery, THEY will be the chiefest threat against the Authority of ANY
State. This is what the PTB fear most, and why the likes of RT can join with the likes of the CIA
to suppress Free Speech. Yes, WE are watching.
Pick your poison.
Beetlekuese Zrolka
Google is currently a multinational conglomerate, not an American company that provides a service
world wide, the corporation was started in the US and grew to the trust of folks surfing the web almost
since the beginning of the internet. Not a spy agency but, just as Microsoft and apple do, not to
mention Facebook, so will Google.
What's the point of Assange? He leaks information that is readily researchable, meaning it's not
that important. The grocery store does the same thing, so long as I'm not being limited to what, and
how much I buy, I just don't care.
This article sounds more like Microsoft propaganda to discredit one of its primary competitors
in a new media effort to corner the software market as supreme software overlord.
At least five percent of the internet's top 100,000 websites are using a new kind of online
tracking system – one which essentially takes a "fingerprint" of your computer via its web browser.
What's more, the software – known as canvas fingerprinting – is nearly impossible to block using
conventional privacy tools.
According to a new report by
ProPublica, the curtains over canvas fingerprinting will officially be lifted in a forthcoming
paper authored by researchers at Princeton University and Belgium's KU Leuven University.
Here's how it works: When you visit a website that features such tracking technology, the site asks
your browser to "draw a hidden image." Since every computer renders the image in a different
way, that drawing is used to label your device with a unique number that allows trackers to keep an
eye on your browsing activity across the internet.
Although there is more than one type of canvas fingerprinting, the most widely used software is
developed by AddThis, and is reportedly used on popular websites like Whitehouse.gov, online
dating site PlentyOfFish, CBS, and even YouPorn (a list of known sites using the software can be found
here).
An AddThis spokesperson also said that it did not inform the websites in question when it put its
tracking technology in place. After ProPublica's original article was published, a YouPorn spokesperson
said the website was unaware the app was tracking users and has removed AddThis functionality.
AddThis chief executive Rich Harris stressed that the company does not use canvas fingerprinting
for anything other than ad targeting and personalization, and that users can stop their data from being
used for advertising or marketing by installing a specific
opt-out cookie on their computers.
This would not stop AddThis from collecting data, however; it would simply stop them from using it
to custom-tailor ads for you.
The company also said it does not use any data it gathers from government websites. So far, it claims
to have only used data for "internal research and development."
Still, the fact that all users have to rely on is a promise from AddThis "is not the best privacy
assurance," said Princeton computer science professor Arvind Narayanan, who helped lead the research
team responsible for uncovering the system.
If opting out is not a satisfactory option on its own, you're left with a few different possibilities.
You could download the Tor browser, which
helps users avoid numerous types of online tracking, or you could block JavaScript from loading in
your browser, which ProPublica notes could make many websites not work properly.
There's also a browser in the works called
Chameleon, which is specifically
designed to block fingerprinting, but at this stage is only recommended for "tech-savvy users."
AddThis is reportedly contemplating ending its test of the tracking tech soon because "it's
not uniquely identifying enough."
"Look at what happened after Snowden spilled the beans... Zilch."
I beg to disagree. For american tech companies it was devastating blow, especially for companies
serving enterprise solutions - IBM, Cisco, Microsoft and others (Google, Facebook et al to lesser
extent as ordinary people don't bother much and even if they do, they find it difficult to change
their habits). They've been kicked out from huge markets in many countries with big economies (China,
Russia, to some extent Germany).
I also think that latest spy scandal in Germany (and subsequent limits regarding US technologies
used in German security apparatus) wouldn't happen without Snowden revelations. It would swept under
the rug.
This was huge enough to have huge repercussions to American hegemony. Maybe because of sheer size
of this thing changes are slow - at least from human point of view. In other words, cogs are grinding
slowly but surely. Expect Snowden revelations to haunt the Hegemon for years to come.
The document was written by the office of Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
who said it revealed a "disturbing" lack of transparency about the reasons governments approve or start
large-scale monitoring of what people do online.
Mass surveillance, said Ms Pillay, was becoming a "dangerous habit rather than an exceptional measure"
for governments.
'Constant stream'
These programmes necessarily interfered with privacy, and governments must do more to ensure that
this curbing of freedoms was "neither arbitrary nor unlawful".
The further that governments went in scooping up information about citizens, the harder they needed
to work to justify the snooping and monitor it to guard against excess, said Ms Pillay.
The report said laws that set out how surveillance could be carried out must be publicly available
and demonstrate specific reasons why the monitoring was taking place.
It said measures to force net companies, mobile operators and others to retain data on what people
did online and whom they talked to had little justification.
Simply gathering data, even if it was never consulted, could potentially curb privacy because too
few states put good limits on who could look at the data and what it could be used for.
"The constant stream of new revelations shows how disturbingly little we really know about the
precise nature of surveillance," said Ms Pillay.
Revelations about the detailed location records stored on smartphones indicates just how much
information companies including Apple and Google are able to gather. \
But it's not just the phone-makers – apps on your phone are hungry for your personal info too.
So is your phone snooping on you?
Here, we reveal what you need to know – and whether you can do anything about it
Dogoodnow, 16 July 2014 12:04pm
Another problem with Android (as far as I can see, as implemented on an early Samsung Note)
is that it keeps turning on apps that you have or think you have turned off or force closed.
Especially true of all the Google related material?
StockBet -> Dogoodnow, 16 July 2014 1:16pm
Watch the PBS documentary called "United States of Secrets" and what they said about Google.
fragilegorilla -> StockBet, 16 July 2014 1:23pm
There's also a very good documentary available on Netflix right now called "terms and conditions
may apply".
It covers this constant snooping and what we actually sign away when we tick those little 'I
accept' boxes.
You can't stop or de-install Google's core apps on any mainstream Android device.
The only way around this is to use an open install like CyanogenMod.
tr1ck5t3r -> dourscot, 16 July 2014 2:04pm
CyanogenMod has had its own bugs will facilitate snooping though. However as the Play
store app is not installed by default, its worth checking the terms and conditions when a CyanogenMod
user install it.
supermarine -> fragilegorilla, 16 July 2014 7:37pm
I've watched it…I was tickled by the revelation that a number of people had signed their souls
to the devil.
Fred1, 16 July 2014 12:09pm
I really can't see the point of most Apps.
Sure WhatsApp and Viber are useful but the vast majority are just websites made for phones. And
they're free so there's a catch.
I hate using WhatsApp and Viber because I know they're as about as secure as using a microphone
on a busy high street and the people behind it our mining the shit out of my data. However I use them
because they're a useful.
I just wish you could choose. Whore your data or pay for the service. The internet should be about
getting £1 from billions of people but instead nowadays its just about whoring data. It's most likely
all bull shit like investing in sub-prime mortgages but hey lets pretend this data has any value.
My approach is to download very few apps, never give my location, never use social media (because
I don't understand why it exists) and never say anything vaguely interesting on WhatsApp, Viber or
indeed CIF. If you don't believe me read this comment.
Westmorlandia -> KatyEB, 16 July 2014 12:12pm
Yes, and so many pre-installed, that you can't delete. Still I prefer it to my old iPhone.
This is easily the worst thing about Android - endless unwanted apps that take up storage space,
use memory, and can't be removed. It's incredibly annoying - it's like they're stealing part of the
phone I paid for.
Westmorlandia, 16 July 2014 12:11pm
Because of the opacity of the system, it's crying out for consumer protection regulation.
Unfortunately governments like collecting our data too, so are actually quite keen for this sort
of data collection to go on.
pretendname -> Westmorlandia, 16 July 2014 12:24pm
Any reasonable left or right centre government, would move to ban Google Glass immediately. But
our government has tipped into fascism.
There is a reasonable argument that banning these devices would not be 'progressive'. By which
they mean, you can't put a genie back in the bottle. But this is simply rationalising away fascism.
We ban or blacklist new technologies all the time, it's just that we've chosen not to deal with
this one because it helps our government suppress anything they might see as seditious.
This wholesale surveillance of citizens is simply wrong. Just like secret trials and detention
without charge.. is simply wrong.
afinch -> pretendname, 16 July 2014 1:23pm
Any reasonable left or right centre government, would move to ban Google Glass immediately.
Eh? Do you think concealed cameras should be illegal? Telephoto lenses? Small microphones? Spy
equipment far more covert, and far cheaper, than Google glass has been available for decades.
What's liberal about banning an underpowered wearable camera that costs too much?
pretendname -> afinch, 16 July 2014 1:29pm
It's not the camera that's the problem with Google glass.. It's that it's a network enabled camera
which is permanently switched on and recording, and is reporting your location and everything you
see and hear to the government, and worse, a company.
Now if you restricted yourself to looking at members of your own family that's ok.. but if you're
going to wear it on a bus, it's going to record not just your movement, but through facial recognition,
the moments of everyone you see.
Can't you see any danger in that?
fallenrider -> pretendname , 16 July 2014 3:09pm
But it doesn't actually do that though does it?!
It records when you tell it to record, not constantly. But don't let facts get in the way or your
paranoia hey.
pretendname -> fallenrider, 16 July 2014 3:35pm
Have you been asleep for the last 2 years. Google, have been actively working with the NSA
to provide every single piece of information about you that they can.
But of course... I'll have to take your word for it because you are clearly a Google Employee on
the Glass project.
Otherwise.. how would you know what it does or doesn't do?
LegoRemix -> pretendname, 16 July 2014 4:21pm
As has been repeated over, and over again. No tech company is actively working with the NSA. What
happened is they got served National Security Letters that *force* their cooperation with government
demands. If they don't comply, their businiess is shut down.
You can moan about a lot of other things tech companies do, but this is literally a 'gun to the
back of the head' scenario for them
pretendname -> LegoRemix , 16 July 2014 4:26pm
I'm not sure...
Eric Schmidt has been attending Bilderberg for the last few years.
From that I surmise that he is fully on board.
But.. even if tech companies are forced into this, the result is the same. It is a bizarre situation
in which, given full details and facts, people still deny reality.. even while it's happening.
You couldn't make it up.
Google glass has a camera which is potentially permantently switched on.
That camera can be picking out faces, mapping those faces to some sort of engram, and http posting
them off to gootle with a location and date stamp, or storing that list of information locally for
later upload.
If it can do it... Recently revelations seem to suggest, it is doing it.
MtnClimber -> afinch, 16 July 2014 5:47pm
It's far worse now than before "smart phones" Before, spying was done on an individual basis. One
person wanted to spy on another.
Now, with smartphones, everyone is under surveillance. Google glass is an extension of the spy
phones that we all carry. It is getting worse by the day.
robinaldlowrise -> LegoRemix, 16 July 2014 10:18pm
No tech company is actively working with the NSA.
Of course they aren't (cough). Nobody is working with the NSA. The NSA is an evil unto itself alone
(cough).
Bluecloud, 16 July 2014 12:14pm
My Android tablet came with Google Maps, which requires permission to access all my contacts, all
my WLAN info as well as my location (of course, it's satnav device) and lots of other personal info.
Their demand for ever greater intrusion into my life increases with every update.
This is a high price to pay for such apps. Beware!
swishy -> Bluecloud , 16 July 2014 12:25pm
I can see a future not too far ahead where these phones will be the only available option which
will basically trap people in the system. Permission to access personal info may not necessarily
be requested and ability to turn off GPS might not be possible. There's a gloomy picture to be going
on with.
beedoubleyou -> Bluecloud , 16 July 2014 12:29pm
I don't understand the price. Nobody has anything to gain by knowing any of my contacts, especially
me.
Nialler, 16 July 2014 12:14pm
My experience with the Galaxy was that in order to use a lot of the functionality I had to register
with Google. This gives them my e-mail, my network, my location (if using the GPS) my buying preferences
etc.
Sod that.
My wife used the GPS to find an address and when we arrived a photo of the house popped up on the
screen. I find all this terribly intrusive.
If someone stopped you on the street and asked you those questions you'd tell them to fling their
hook.
tilw -> Nialler, 16 July 2014 12:44pm
My way of handling Google and similar accounts is to give Google my email address at another
on-line "everything including the kitchen sink" service and vice versa.
Both the email addresses are eminently disposable and neither of them point to any of my actual
"real" email addresses. It can be a bit of a pain keeping track of which service has which disposable
address, but it's worth it.
This technique also pretty quickly reveals which "services" have passed email addresses on
to spammers either knowingly or otherwise.
blipvert -> tilw, 16 July 2014 12:55pm
Google started to get a bit sniffy about this kind thing a while ago, and Boss Man Schmidt declared
Google+ to be an identity service, and only real names would do.
Fortunately, they have recently abandoned this Big Brother approach in a desperate attempt to actually
get customers to use Google+.
MasterPale -> Nialler, 16 July 2014 1:35pm
Registering with Google is only necessary in order to buy apps from Google's app market.
There are other sources of apps such as Samsung, Amazon, app developers websites, app review websites.
Of course you have to register with these sources too but the process is generally less intrusive.
You can disable and uninstall Google apps such as Gmail, Google search, Maps etc.
And install alternatives which do not gather your data such as Hotmail, Hushmail, Firefox browser
with ad-blockers and anti-trackers, DuckDuckGo or StartPage search engines, and Bing maps or TomTom
(if there is no app use your phone browser to access the websites - create a bookmark and you have
instant map service).
People are often afraid to edit their phone/tablet, a fear promoted by the dire pop-up warnings
that if you turn off x it will melt your phone. No it wont!
Do not install junk apps. You can expect them to be infested with spyware and to involve 'in-app
purchases'. Choose quality apps, recommended by reliable reviews. When installing an app, buy the
paid version and save money on data long-term.
'Free' apps invade your privacy, keep data turned on to feed you a stream of adverts.
You pay in lots of ways. It costs 69p for an app or maybe £2.99 for the expensive apps? And how much
is privacy worth to you? How much do you pay for data?
If you have not seen an Adam Curtis documentary nor watched the BBC's current documentary series
'Meet the Men Who Made Us Spend' (on iPlayer) then I recommend them. They are light and fluffy, not
overly intellectual, but they review the history of the last fifty years and the growth of consumption
and offer an explanation of why so many people are obese, we spend too much time and money on pointless
consumption, and are politically oppressed. It might make you decide you don't need so many gadgets
or that you don't need so many apps on your gadgets. It will certainly make you reject 'smart things'
and the continuing infantilisation and passification of the population.
dourscot -> Nialler, 16 July 2014 1:41pm
But you can log out of Google. This doesn't solve your problem with other apps but it's not as
bad as you suggest.
ConanOB -> Nialler , 16 July 2014 4:48pm
You buy an iPhone, apple asks for you credit card number, expiration date and you need to create
and email account and use a back up email account if you are imperfect and might someday forget your
password.
Everything comes at a price, the more secured and locked down you want your smartphone to be, expect
to pay a premium price for it.
It is not difficult for phone companies to retrieve text messages etc and time, date and duration
of calls you made every day.
Just stay away from apps like the flashlight app that needs access to your microphone or any app
that request access to your contacts.
NotANumbers -> MasterPale, 18 July 2014 1:05am
I use F-Droid. It is a repository of free and open source applications. If you don't trust one,
you can just have a look at the source code, providing you can understand it, and heck, even if you
can't, you could still download, safe in the knowledge that there will inevitably be more eyes viewing
the code and therefore less chance you'll have a malicious or snooping application.
swishy, 16 July 2014 12:18pm
I have one of those Samsung Galaxy Note phones. It's a work phone so doesn't actually belong to
me. I just switch off the WIFI and GPS which is hopefully enough to stop my location being tracked.
ThisFieldIsBlank -> swishy , 16 July 2014 12:26pm
No it isn't! You will still be tracked as the phone continuously send signals to the network
to check for signals. Even Brick phones do it, it is an inherent feature of mobile or cellular phones.
bargepoled2, 16 July 2014 12:19pm
With android kit kat 4.4 you can activate or deactivate each apps location settings.
At least 80 percent of all audio calls are gathered and stored by the NSA, whistleblower William
Binney has revealed. The former code-breaker says the spy agency's ultimate aim is no less than total
population control.
The National Security Agency lies about what it stores, said William Binney, one of the highest
profile whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA, at a
conference in London
organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism on July 5. Binney left the agency shortly after
the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center because he was disgusted at the organizations move towards
public surveillance.
"At least 80 percent of fiber-optic cables globally go via the US," Binney said. "This
is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80 percent of all audio
calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores."
Binney has no evidence to substantiate his claims as he did not take any documents with him when
he left the NSA. However, he insists the organization is untruthful about its intelligence gathering
practices and their ultimate aim. He says that recent Supreme Court decisions have led him to believe
the NSA won't stop until it has complete control over the population.
"The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control," Binney said, "but I'm a
little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing
a warrant before searching a smartphone."
During his speech at the conference, Binney praised spy-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden for disseminating
the classified documents that revealed the NSA's global spy programs. The latest revelations showed
that contrary to the NSA's claims, the majority of information the agency gathers is from ordinary
citizens with no connection to terrorism.
Washington has defended its spy programs, claiming that the NSA targets individuals with connections
to known terrorist groups to thwart attacks. Binney said this was a lie and the NSA had stopped
"zero attacks" with its intelligence gathering programs.
One of the main factors that has allowed the NSA to increase its spy programs is the lack of oversight
in the US, argues Binney. In particular, he took issue with the Foreign Surveillance Court (FISA),
which oversees the issue of search warrants against people suspected of terrorism. Binney believes
the court is meaningless and always sides with the US government.
"The Fisa court has only the government's point of view," he said. "There are no other
views for the judges to consider. There have been at least 15-20 trillion constitutional violations
for US domestic audiences and you can double that globally."
Revelations about US global spy programs have sparked mass indignation, with one American judge
saying the surveillance was almost Orwellian in nature. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also compared
US intelligence policy to the antics of the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany.
I'm as against NSA surveillance as the next guy, but I say BS.
Why? Consider a 1 minute phone call at 50 kbps would require storage of 3MB. Further assume an "average"
phone call is 3 mins and there are 12.4 BILLION phone calls per day worldwide, capturing 80% of that
traffic for 365 would require 33 MILLION terabytes of storage PER YEAR.
Your calculation is much higher than the actual requirements for 2 reasons:
1. 50 kbps isn't needed for voice communications. 5-6 kbps is enough.
2. You didn't take data compression into account.
Sunshine 12.07.2014 20:31
The current security/intelligence services are a vile stain on the memories and sacrifices of those
who fought and died in the hope of preserving the freedoms that this country was founded upon and
we cherish(ed) in our hearts.
Its the height of irony....you want to pull out all the stops to defend our country and way of
life by destroying it....
Remember, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.....we
did not know (for sure) the devil was walking amongst, and destroying our way of life, until Snowden,
Drake and Binney opened our eyes and minds.....
Otto Moser 12.07.2014 19:31
SUPER !
So that Austrian radio comedian, who phoned the US Embassy, asking for a back-up of his daughter's
birthday party video, because he claimed to have inadvertently deleted it, was absolutely within reality
!
Naturally, the Embassy was not amused !
Fábio O. Ribeiro 12.07.2014 14:47
iPhone deserves a new name: iNSAmike. Ha, ha, ha... I will not have one.
Emmett 12.07.2014 14:23
NSA is doing what Hoover did as the long time US FBI director. He spied on and blackmailed US presidents
and other politicians so they could never oust and with all the dirt he had on those politicians masquerading
as pillars of the community he forced them to do what he wanted them to do.
We see proof on a massive scale the NSA uses the Hoover blueprint to blackmail politicians but have
take it a step further with technology to gather information on even more people.
Kenneth T. Tellis 12.07.2014 12:35
What the NSA is now doing, was what the U.S. government accused the Soviets of doing. If that be
the case how is it legal? Which means that Obama Regime is in violation of both the U.S. Constitution
and Civil Rights. No nation can ever trust the good intentions of the present U.S. government. So
much for Democracy in America, an absolute FARCE!
The fact that gmail ignores dot in email address treating [email protected]
and [email protected] has interesting security implications.
The same for treating [email protected] and
[email protected] as identical. As one commenter noted "Oh and
Google needs to admit they fucked up and fix it, I'm pretty sure that guys info I got could lead to
some sort of lawsuit."
An anonymous reader writes "My Gmail account is of the form (first initial).(middle initial).(common
last name)@gmail.com. I routinely receive emails clearly intended for someone else. These range from
newsletters to personal and business emails. I've received email with various people's addresses, phone
numbers and even financial information.
A few years ago I started saving the more interesting ones, and now have an archive of hundreds
of emails directed at no less than eight distinct individuals. I used to try replying to the personal
ones with a form response, but it didn't seem to help.
To make matters worse, I frequently find I can't use my email to create a new account at various
sites because it's already been registered. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there any good way
to handle this?"
Animats
Get a real mail account (5, Insightful)
Get a real mail account and get off Gmail/Hotmail/other free service. You get what you pay for.
MarioMax
Re: Get a real mail account (4, Informative)
This. Domains are cheap, and hosting/forwarding is cheap. Plus you get some level of personalization.
Exactly. This also covers the case where your ISP or Microsoft or Google does something that you
can't abide by. It decouples you from your provider.
You can move to a different email hosting service or even run your own without much inconvenience.
It also looks a little more professional than having a HotMail account.
Anonymous Coward
Re: Get a real mail account
Absolutely. I must have avoided the melee since I domained back in '95. Gmail was interesting
for porn accounts and whatnot, but now mailinator is better.
Gmail isn't good for anything anymore except privacy violations.
MarioMax
Re: Get a real mail account (1)
I've used my own domain for 9 years with paid hosting thru a major host. Personally I can't stand
webmail and stick to traditional POP3 email and for that purpose it suits me. But it is easy enough
to set up domain forwarding to services like gmail if you choose (most likely for a fee).
The nice thing about buying a domain is you can pretty much set up unlimited email addresses under
the domain for any purpose you choose, or use a single email address as a "catch-all" for said domain.
Web services like Facebook won't know and won't care.
As for specific hosting recommendations, they are all about the same in terms of terrible service
and support, but I encourage you to research and decide for yourself.
Anonymous Coward
Re: The only plausible solution... (0)
Is to change your name
You'd be surprised at the amount of misaddressed email I get at [email protected].
It's rather astonishing, I do say.
aardvarkjoe
Re:Abandon Your Real Name (1)
As for the rest of your problem, just set up a second Gmail address with a nonsensical middle
name (first initial).turnip.(common last name)@gmail.com and have it forward to your "real" gmail
address. Problem solved.
This is actually a good idea even if you don't have the problem that the original poster had. I
created a new gmail account with that general idea a little while back which I use for things like
online retailers. It makes it really easy to filter those emails out of my personal inbox, which can
be a pain sometimes otherwise.
The [email protected] addresses would let you do something similar, but they've got a couple
serious drawbacks -- many (in my experience, probably "most") websites will reject an email address
with a + sign, and also it exposes your actual personal address. Using a separate gmail address solves
those.
I do wish that Google would come up with a proper disposable email address solution.
mvar
Re:Name? (1)
This. As for misdirected email, i had a similar problem a couple of years back when someone decided
to use my email (no real name) for his facebook account. As it seems email confirmation is optional
and the guy made a full profile, added friends etc xD
watermark
gmail plus sign postfix
Well, I have a solution to your "email has already been registered" issue.
Give the site an email address with a plus sign postfix like that and it should detect it as a
new unique address.
Some sites don't allow the plus symbol in email addresses (even though it's a valid character),
so mileage may vary.
whoever57
Re:gmail plus sign postfix (2)
MANY sites don't allow the plus symbol in email addresses (even though it's a valid character),
so mileage may vary.
FTFY.
Seriously, having used "plus-addressing" for many years, I can attest to the fact that many websites
won't accept it.
I know of one site where I did register years ago, but their de-registration page won't accept
the "plus-address" that I used to register (rakuten.com, I'm looking at you).
chill
Yes (4, Funny)
Yes, I have this exact same problem. However, I do not keep other people's e-mail.
I have been able to track down the correct people to whom the e-mails belong. In two cases, the
people are lawyers and the e-mails contained either personal or confidential information.
Another case is a general contractor, and I've received quotes from subcontractors, blueprints
and general correspondence.
In one case it was a confirmation of tickets for a theme park. (I debated showing up as soon as
the park opened and claiming the tickets, but ethics got the better of me.)
These people now reside in my address book. I forward the e-mail in question over to them,
and CC a copy to the sender.
Anonymous Coward
What is the problem?
To make matters worse, I frequently find I can't use my email to create a new account at various
sites because it's already been registered.
Why not make a password reset for them (unless they have "security questions") and change the email?
Then you can create your own account. It is not your problem that some hobo can't enter their own
e-mail address when registering accounts.
As for the unwanted email, tell the sender politely that they have sent personal/confidential information
to you, an unsuspecting third party with a similar address. Then throw any future mail from them away.
I have gotten some mail like this, but they all rectified their mistake and stopped sending to me.
If they wouldn't, it isn't my problem (apart from pressing the "junk email" button in my MUA).
Anonymous Coward
Even worse: Facebook does not validate e-mails (0)
So I got somebody else's Facebook notifications. From time to time, I get some e-mail from Facebook
stating the e-mail address has not been verified (with no description on what to do if you are not
the intended recipient). I hoped this situation would die with time, but it is already five months
since I got the first e-mail.
At some stage in the past, I also got some e-mails from ebay about a seller and a buyer discussing
transaction e-mails. These ones did actually die.
In both cases, the e-mail account the messages should go was not the one I tend to give out. Google
allows for different spellings on the same account. Your e-mail account may be achieved by following
permutations: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
And this is not a bug, it is a feature.
hawguy
I have the same problem (4, Funny)
I use my first initial+last name as my email address and get mail destined for a half dozen people.
One person is an elderly gentleman in the midwest, I've given up any hope of getting him to stop giving
out my email address. I only get a half dozen or so a month so it's not too bad.
I usually send a form letter to emails where it looks like a person might read the response (as
opposed to newsletters, etc). For those emails where I don't think a human will read the response,
I usually just hit the Spam button, unless there's a quick and easy to find unsubscribe link.
Sometimes when an email has a signature that says that if I receive a copy of the email in error
I must delete all copies, in my reply, I ask whether they want to work on a time and materials basis
or a fixed price $500 contract for me to track down and delete the email from all devices that it
may have been delivered to (having emails go to a phone, tablet, several computers, imap download
+ backup means a fair amount of work to find and delete it everywhere). So far none have been willing
to pay. I wonder if I could accept their demand to delete all copies of the email as implicit authorization
to do the work and then bill them for the work.
Anonymous Coward
I like mail redirectors. Everyone but true spammers will respond to you redirecting all the mail
from their domain back to the support address for that domain. Preface it with, "you must have lost
this, I am helping., HERE" And resend the email. Maybe twice to make sure it isn't lost. Works every
time.
Anonymous Coward
me too (0)
my gmail is [email protected]and i have this problem all
the time. i have on occasion looked up the person using my email by searching the phone book for people
with my name around the address of the local businesses and people that frequently email me... usually
it appears the people are 60+ but when someone used my email to start a twitter account it was someone
in his 30s based on the picture he used on the account. i did like someone above said and used email
based password reset and posted on the account that the person was using the wrong email address and
that the account should be removed from their friend list or whatever twitter does.
in general i am really annoyed by the email i constantly get, though the other week i did get some
tickets to an indoor trampoline place that sounded fun... sadly the place was 2500 miles away. most
the people using my account i think are leaving off the random number or swapping out a _ for an inconsequential
. that leads me to getting their emails.
Anonymous Coward
I have the same issue (0)
I have had several emails from job applications to registrations on shopping sites to my gmail.
I reply telling the person that they have contacted the wrong person, and advise them to contact the
intended recipient by another means.
I once got a schedule for a church rota for somewhere in the states, and when I replied saying
I wasn't the person in question they asked me to forward it to them! I'm not quite sure how they expected
me to do this.
This misaddressing of emails is probably really confusing the NSA email contact database though.
Anonymous Coward
Had this issue (0)
Someone was registering for sites using my GMail address without the dot I use. They registered
for a site and an email came through confirming their details, including phone number.
I phoned up and asked him politely to not use my email address.
He accused me of hacking his account he has used for 2 years.
I explained I have had the account since GMail was 'invite only'.
Got swore at loads, so hung up and set up a rule so that mail without the dot is ignored and
trashed. Problem solved!
I've noticed that forum spammers like to use that trick to get around "each account must have a
unique e-mail" settings on certain types of forum software.
hism
Unsubscribe or filter (1)
I have the same problem. There's at least two dozens distinct individuals who have had emails erroneously
addressed to my inbox.
For automated emails that offer an easy link to unsubscribe or dissociate my email address from
that account, I use the provided link. Those are pretty easy.
Sometimes people register for paid services that send a monthly bill and it comes to my email address.
They may or may not be of English origin. For these, I just add a filter or rule to my email provider
or client to just delete them or move them. Communicating with someone, possibly in another language,
possibly requiring lots of bureaucratic red tape, is not really worth it. If they care about it enough,
it's their responsibility to fix it.
The most annoying case is when a large group of friends start an email thread with a whole bunch
of different people in the "to" or "cc" field. Asking them to correct the email address is pretty
much an exercise in futility, since all it takes is one person to hit 'reply to all' and your email
address is back on the thread. For these, I just block every recipient on the thread.
I've never had the problem of someone already having registered my email. One way around it would
be to set up another email address that just forwards to your actual email address.
Anonymous Coward
Yep, I have this issue
1) If I can track down the person, I try to contact them and let them know they have they're using
the wrong email
2) If it's a real person sending the email (like when one person have out my email for his house refinance
stuff), I email the person back asking them to contact via phone or whatever the person and tell them
they have the wrong email address
3) If a person in #2 does so and i keep receiving new emails because the person doesn't learn, I ask
someone again like in #2, though this time I recommend they they stop doing business with, or throw
out the job application, or whatever because the person is so stupid that they can't even figure out
their own address
4) I've been know to find the person via their relatives and ask them to inform the person that they're
using the wrong email
5) For sites where registrations were done, I simply go to the site, click Forgot Password, get a
reset, go in, and change the information so it's no longer to my email address. Often I change the
address to STOP+USING+[MY+ADDRESS]@gmail.com. Sometimes logging in to the account has the benefits
of getting me their address and/or phone number to contact, which I've done.
6) In cases where I've changed the email address and they've had tech support change it back to mine,
I go back in to the account and change ALL the info to mine, so now it become my account and they
can no longer use it or get any access to it.
xrayspx
I've just been dealing with this (1)
I use a personal domain for my actual mail, but have accounts at all the major free mail sites
too, just for spam or whatever.
I started getting mail to my Yahoo account which wasn't spam, but clearly not for me, as part of
a group of people participating in a medical imaging conference. For a while I just blew it off, but
eventually the organizer mailed my actual non-yahoo address by mistake as well. So I decided to be
swell about it and let her know that I'm not the person she's trying to reach. She said "Oh, I'm sorry,
I meant to do (yourname)@yahoo.com, thanks!", and so I told her "well no, that's also me, sorry".
I proceeded to tell her an address which would work for her intended recipient (work email for the
person she was trying to mail, who isn't me).
Basically she refused to believe she has been sending to the wrong address, and said "I had no
idea two people could have the same email address, I guess Yahoo must allow it or something". At that
point, I gave up and just let it go again. It's not high-volume enough to matter.
koan
Me too (1)
They can't reply or get your reply because they can't log in, I went so far as to track one person
down via an ad sent to them, I have also received someone's complete information, SSN, etc. In the
end I just drag them to the trash.
Oh and Google needs to admit they fucked up and fix it, I'm pretty sure that guys info I got
could lead to some sort of lawsuit.
weave
Happens to me a lot with my own domain (4, Insightful)
I own a very short domain name where the first part of the name is the same as many organization's
name.
e.g., if it was example.com then others have example.co.uk or exampleinc.com etc and I get a LOT
of their email because I wildcard my domain for email and people just assume that example.com will
work
As I get them, I add a postfix rule to reject that specific username but I still get stuff, including
very confidential stuff.
I haven't advised these organizations because I fear they'll just turn around and try to dispute
to get my domain or accuse me of criminal interception or whatever. So I just delete them and they
can wonder why they never got a reply.
Rule #1: "Email is not a guaranteed service."
Rule #2: "Email is not secure. Stop sending confidential stuff through it"
kiick
Get your own domain name (1)
I had various problems with email address collisions as well. Then when I had to change ISPs, I
decided to get my own domain name. It's a little different when you own your own email address. If
you register a domain, you can be [email protected] or such. Then you just forward
from your actual email host to the registered email address. It's only a few dollars a year. Then
YOU decide who gets an email address for your domain, and you can have whatever policy you want to
avoid collisions.
Garin
bah, you guys are no fun (2)
Y'all are missing out on a good time.
I have a gmail account with the first name dot last name set up. As you can imagine I get quite
a few messages for people who forget to tell their friends about their middle initial. However from
context, I can often tell which of my name-sharing buddies the email was intended for. Over the years
I have actually gotten to know a couple of them, which is fun.
I don't bother trying to tell the senders about the mistakes, they usually do nothing, oddly. The
recipient, however, tends to get on it effectively.
It's quite interesting do talk to them. What's in a name?
Anonymous Coward
Worst is Barnes and noble, nook
They won't take your email address off if some uses it by mistake, you are stuck getting perpetual
updates
ShaunC
This happens to me a lot, too
A few months back, I received an email on my Gmail from the agent of an NFL player. The agent was
apparently looking to help his client negotiate a contract, and conveniently attached a draft of said
contract. I went and updated the NFL player's Wikipedia entry stating that he was going into free
agency and looking for a gig. Hey, I could have done a lot worse, like placing bets using inside info
or something.
Many, many years ago, I had the screen name "File" on AOL. There was some sort of ancient productivity
suite (maybe Notes, or 123, or something) where you would cc a message to "file" in order to keep
a local copy, and many AOL users presumed their email service worked the same way. Oh sweet Christ,
the things that landed in my inbox there over the years..
lamber45
Haven't had this issue with GMail, but with other (2)
My GMail (and Yahoo! as well) username is (first name)(middle name)(last name), all fairly common
[in fact at my current employer there are multiple matches of (first name)(last name), and my father
has the same (first name)(last name) as well], and I have not had this problem with either service.
Perhaps using initials instead of full names is part of it; or your last-name may have different demographic
connotations.
I did, however, recently have that problem with a Comcast account. When the tech visited our home
for installation, he created an account (first name)(last name) @comcast.net . I didn't actually give
it out anywhere, yet within a few months it was filled with a hundred or so messages for someone in
another state. I did try responding to one item that seemed moderately important, and whoever got
the response [the help-desk of some organization] didn't seem to grasp that I had no connection with
the intended recipient. Since I hadn't advertised it anywhere, it was easy to change the username,
to (my first initial)(wife's first initial)(my last initial)(wife's last initial)(string of digits)
@comcast.net. While this address appears to have been reused, apparently Comcast no longer allows
address reuse; I tried using a previous ID that I had used a long time ago, and it was not available.
Since you ask for advice, I recommend two courses of action:
1. As long as you still have access to that address, when you receive anything that is clearly
misdirected and potentially of high value, deal with it politely. Don't use a "form response", instead
personalize the response to the content of the message. CC the intended recipient on the response,
if you are able to divine who it is. Once you've dealt with the matter, delete the whole thread. For
newsletters, try following an "unsubscribe" action, if that's not available mark as spam.
2. Consider an exit strategy from your current e-mail address, no matter how much is attached
to it. See the Google help posting "Change your username". For the new address, try a long nickname
or full first name instead of first initial; or maybe add a string of numbers, a city your contacts
will recognize, or a title. Give your important contacts plenty of advance notice, post the new address
with the reasons you're switching [perhaps with a list of the confusing other identities as well]
on your "old" Google+ profile. After a reasonable time (say six months or a year), delete your old
account. Make sure you change your address at all the "various sites" you've registered at before
doing so, in case you need to use a password reset function.
... If you are certain that everyone will use the periods just as you specified then it is
pretty easy to add a filter which separates the mail into different folders based on the position
of the periods. That can automatically filter email addresses that aren't formatted to your liking.
Posted by timothy
from the but-if-by-elect-you-mean-choose dept.
theodp (442580) writes "'The government
is not the only American power whose motivations need to be rigourously examined,' writes The Telegraph's
Katherine Rushton. 'Some 2,400 miles away from Washington, in Silicon Valley,
Google is aggressively gaining power with little to keep it in check. It has cosied up to governments
around the world so effectively that its chairman, Eric Schmidt,
is a White House advisor. In Britain, its executives meet with ministers more than almost any other
corporation. Google can't be blamed for this: one of its jobs is to lobby for laws that benefit its
shareholders, but it is up to governments to push back. As things stand, Google - and to a lesser extent,
Facebook - are in danger of becoming the architects of the law.' Schmidt, by the way, is apparently
interested in influencing at least two current hot-button White House issues. Joined by execs from
Apple, Oracle, and Facebook, the Google Chairman asserted in a March letter to Secretary of State John
Kerry that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline
is not in the economic interests of the U.S.; the Obama administration on Friday
extended the review period on the pipeline, perhaps until after the Nov. 4 congressional elections.
And as a 'Major Contributor' to Mark
Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC, Schmidt is also helping to shape public opinion on the White House's call
for immigration reform; FWD.us just launched
new attack ads (videos)
and a petition aimed at immigration reform
opponent Rep. Steve King. In Dave Eggers'
The
Circle, politicians who impede the company execs' agenda are
immediately
brought down. But that's fiction, right?"
Just based on their name, you would think that it is a good group of people. They might as well
be called the 'Children's Safety Council', while they barbecue infants.
A commenter on the linked blog sums up how, even if this is true, it's not news in the way the headline
makes it seem.
FOTF2012 says
April 18, 2014 at 11:26 am
The Boris letter is misleading. Makes it sound like CCHR applied for and got a grant from Google
in the sense of a monetary gift.
Pretty much anyone can set up a Google ad words account (https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704354?hl=en)
and then learn how to manage the details (https://www.google.com/grants/details.html). Here are the
basic qualifications: https://www.google.com/grants/... [google.com].
One requirement is to be a 501(c)3, which CCHR is. You can search for them on GuideStar (http://www.guidestar.org/?gclid=CKDF0e2q6r0CFVKFfgodPrMAHA)
and you get 38 results. Apparently CCHR sets up separate entities in each state - maybe they have
to as a charity.
One of the Google Ads program restrictions is that you can only link to one legitimate website.
So I imagine they will link to http://www.cchr.org/ [cchr.org].
Anyway, this "grant" is something that any "non-profit" can use. It is nothing significant Google
has given CCHR specifically.
It is part of a program that no doubt profits Google while they can say they are helping non-profits.
Further, given the eligibility criteria (which CCHR meet), if Google were to deny CCHR use of the
program, they would be in a lawsuit and would probably lose.
SubtleArray
CCHR has made some valid points... (Score:1)
by (2633093) on Sunday April 20, 2014 @02:19PM (#46800483) Homepage
If you can look past the weird conspiracy theories and Xenu stuff. Late last year I saw a documentary
called "The Marketing of Madness." It makes a compelling case about how over-medicated we're becoming,
and how simple quirks are now being labeled as illnesses to turn a profit. There might be some truth
to this. CCHR might not be an entirely awful group.
... Google has adamantly defended this practice by saying data handed from any person to a third-party
is no longer private.
"Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's
assistant opens the letter, people who use Web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails
are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery," Googled argued in a
motion filed last July. "Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information
he voluntarily turns over to third parties.'"
Last September, the presiding judge in the case authorized a motion that said that the "critical
question with respect to implied consent is whether the parties whose communications were intercepted
had adequate notice of the interception."
"That the person communicating knows that the interception has the capacity to monitor the communication
is insufficient to establish implied consent. Moreover, consent is not an all-or-nothing proposition,"
Judge Lucy Koh wrote for the United States District Court in the Northern District of California.
Google's terms and condition then, Koh said, "cannot conclude that any party – Gmail users or non-Gmail
users- has consented to Google's reading of email for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing
targeted advertising." In turn, Google uses that "customized" experience to generate around $50 billion
a year in targeted advertising profits.
As Casey Johnston of Ars Technica noted on Tuesday, however, Google's updated TOS doesn't alleviate
all of the problems produced for Judge Koh. Indeed, non-Gmail users who are opposed to having the outgoing
messages they send to customers of Google scanned wouldn't necessarily know that their correspondence
is subject to such scrutiny unless they were Gmail users themselves who accepted the newest terms.
"The specific mention of 'received' content suggests Google may not want the burden of warning
non-Gmail users that emails sent to Gmail will be scanned," Johnston wrote.
Progressives often cite "market failure" as a reason for regulation. But the term itself has a
hidden laissez-faire bias, implying that markets generally succeed and that intervention is extraordinary.
Vaidhyanathan balances the playing field by introducing the idea of the "public failure," which itself
is parasitic on a larger vision of endeavors naturally performed or sponsored by government or civil
society. As he explains,
[N]eoliberalism. . . .had its roots in two prominent ideologies: techno-fundamentalism, an
optimistic belief in the power of technology to solve problems . . . and market fundamentalism, the
notion that most problems are better (at least more efficiently) solved by the actions of private
parties rather than by state oversight or investment.
Neoliberalism [included] . . . substantial state subsidy and support for firms that promulgated
the neoliberal model and supported its political champions. But in the end the private sector
calls the shots and apportions (or hoards) resources, as the instruments once used to rein in the
excesses of firms have been systematically dismantled. . . . .
Google has deftly capitalized on a thirty-year tradition of "public failure," chiefly in the United
States but in much of the rest of the world as well. Public failure, in contrast, occurs when instruments
of the state cannot satisfy public needs and deliver services effectively. This failure occurs not
necessarily because the state is the inappropriate agent to solve a particular problem (although there
are plenty of areas in which state service is inefficient and counterproductive); it may occur when
the public sector has been intentionally dismantled, degraded, or underfunded, while expectations
for its performance remain high.
Vaidhyanathan's call for a "Human Knowledge Project" in response to this trend is one of the few
tech policy proposals that is bold, ambitious, and comprehensive enough to address the challenges
posed by privatized knowledge systems.
Matthew P. Ciszek
... The idea of "techno-fundamentalism" resonated deeply with me as I have struggled with efforts
in my profession to abandon tried and true methods of librarianship and information science in the
rush to embrace the latest gadget or newest technology. Indeed, American culture (and it could
be argued Western culture as well) has become fascinated with all things tech to the point of techno-fundamentalism,
or a blind faith in technology and its ability to solve all the world's problems. Technology has done
great things for the human race, but has also had weighty consequences as well.
Riparchivist
"...we are not Google's customers: we are its product", March 27, 2011
From the observation that "...we are not Google's customers: we are its product" (p.3) through
the suggestion of a Human Knowledge Project I found this book to be a well-written and informative
read. Mr. Vaidhyanathan gives good detail regarding the many fingers that Google has in so much of
the Internet's tools and products while always reminding us that Google is an advertising company,
an advertising company that does its work through seemingly free tools that they make. These product's
default settings are designed to collect the maximum data about our personal use of the Web. So, if
you use Google's products (or any other product) look at the default settings and change them to something
that you can live with, or do without.
J. C. Jeanty "Jeanty-Mang" (Haiti)
An interesting view of google., June 11, 2012
... ... ...
For certain, I agree with the fact that google has incredible power upon all of us. A scary amount
of power that in retrospect, I don't think any of us would willingly handover to a shareholder owned,
profit driven multi-national corporation, which core widget product is the information it collects
on us to sell to other just as big corporations. In that sense, I am now infinitely more cognizant
of this new big brother we now have burgeoned into existence through our collective seed of trust.
This was the author's goal truly. To open our eyes to this world we were now in. We aren't necessarily
living in a open free world, but rather one owned by a corporation that in the future, could exercise
its power over us and it all.
Most Australians are opposed to Google handing over Australian data to American spy agencies and
want greater privacy protection following the revelations of US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden.
There is also strong support for greater government regulation to force the internet giant to pay more
tax in Australia.
... ... ...
Two-thirds of Australians also oppose Google giving their user data to US intelligence and law-enforcement
agencies such as the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Google has publicly reported that US authorities' requests for user data increased by 85 per cent
between 2010 and 2012 (from 8888 in 2010 to 16,407 in 2012). Most data access requests were from law-enforcement
agencies seeking information about drug trafficking and other criminal activity. The number of formal
requests relating to foreign intelligence and terrorist targets has not been disclosed.
... ... ..
The UMR survey also reveals increasing Australian disquiet about Google's integrity, with 44
per cent of people agreeing with a suggestion the company manipulates its search results for its own
benefit. This is a 12 per cent rise since the 2011 survey.
The latest survey also shows a large majority, 70 per cent, disapprove of Google's use of offshore
tax structures to minimise the amount of tax it pays in Australia. There is overwhelming support, 79
per cent, for government legislation to force Google to pay tax at the same level as Australian companies.
Google has attracted widespread criticism for avoiding billions of dollars in worldwide income taxes
by shifting revenue into shell companies registered in tax havens such as Bermuda.
The company's Australian arm paid just $781,741 in tax in 2011, despite revenues exceeding $201
million. It paid $6.16 million in tax in 2012, with revenue rising to just under $269 million. However,
the published accounts do not include all revenue earned from its dominant search business, which is
estimated to generate between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually in Australia.
UMR managing director John Utting said: ''Google has such a high degree of influence on our media
and advertising that it is time it was subjected to close scrutiny.
''I employ 15 people in my business and I paid more tax than Google does with its billion-dollar-and-growing
revenue stream.''
"In 2012, the data broker industry generated 150 billion in revenue that's twice the size of
the entire intelligence budget of the United States government-all generated by the effort to detail
and sell information about our private lives."
- Senator
Jay Rockefeller IV
"Quite simply, in the digital age, data-driven marketing has become the fuel on which America's
free market engine runs."
- Direct Marketing Association
* * *
Google is very secretive about the exact nature of its for-profit intel operation and how it uses
the petabytes of data it collects on us every single day for financial gain. Fortunately, though, we
can get a sense of the kind of info that Google and other Surveillance Valley megacorps compile on
us, and the ways in which that intel might be used and abused, by looking at the business practices
of the "data broker" industry.
Thanks to a series of Senate hearings, the business of data brokerage is finally being understood
by consumers, but the industry got its start back in the 1970s as a direct outgrowth of the failure
of telemarketing. In its early days, telemarketing had an abysmal success rate: only 2 percent of people
contacted would become customers. In his book, "The Digital Perso," Daniel J. Solove explains what
happened next:
To increase the low response rate, marketers sought to sharpen their targeting techniques, which
required more consumer research and an effective way to collect, store, and analyze information about
consumers. The advent of the computer database gave marketers this long sought-after ability - and
it launched a revolution in targeting technology.
Data brokers rushed in to fill the void. These operations pulled in information from any source
they could get their hands on - voter registration, credit card transactions, product warranty information,
donations to political campaigns and non-profits, court records - storing it in master databases and
then analyzing it in all sorts of ways that could be useful to direct-mailing and telemarketing outfits.
It wasn't long before data brokers realized that this information could be used beyond telemarketing,
and quickly evolved into a global for-profit intelligence business that serves every conceivable data
and intelligence need.
Today, the industry churns somewhere around $200 billion in revenue annually. There are up to 4,000
data broker companies - some of the biggest are publicly traded - and together, they have detailed
information on just about every adult in the western world.
No source of information is sacred: transaction records are bought in bulk from stores, retailers
and merchants; magazine subscriptions are recorded; food and restaurant preferences are noted; public
records and social networks are scoured and scraped. What kind of prescription drugs did you buy? What
kind of books are you interested in? Are you a registered voter? To what non-profits do you donate?
What movies do you watch? Political documentaries? Hunting reality TV shows?
That info is combined and kept up to date with address, payroll information, phone numbers, email
accounts, social security numbers, vehicle registration and financial history. And all that is sliced,
isolated, analyzed and mined for data about you and your habits in a million different ways.
The dossiers are not restricted to generic market segmenting categories like "Young Literati" or
"Shotguns and Pickups" or "Kids & Cul-de-Sacs," but often contain the most private and intimate details
about a person's life, all of it packaged and sold over and over again to anyone willing to pay.
Take MEDbase200, a boutique for-profit intel outfit that specializes in selling health-related consumer
data. Well, until last week, the company offered its clients a list of
rape victims (or "rape sufferers," as the company calls them) at the low price of $79.00 per thousand.
The company claims to have segmented this data set into hundreds of different categories, including
stuff like the ailments they suffer, prescription drugs they take and their ethnicity:
These rape sufferers are family members who have reported, or have been identified as individuals
affected by specific illnesses, conditions or ailments relating to rape. Medbase200 is the owner of
this list. Select from families affected by over 500 different ailments, and/or who are consumers
of over 200 different Rx medications. Lists can be further selected on the basis of lifestyle, ethnicity,
geo, gender, and much more. Inquire today for more information.
MEDbase promptly took its "rape sufferers" list off line last week after its existence was revealed
in a Senate investigation into the activities of the data-broker industry. The company pretended like
the list was a huge mistake. A MEDbase rep
tried convincing a Wall Street Journal reporter that its rape dossiers were just a "hypothetical
list of health conditions/ailments." The rep promised it was never sold to anyone. Yep, it was a big
mistake. We can all rest easy now. Thankfully, MEDbase has hundreds of other similar dossier collections,
hawking the most private and sensitive medical information.
For instance, if lists of rape victims aren't your thing, MEDbase can sell dossiers on people suffering
from anorexia, substance abuse, AIDS and HIV, Alzheimer's Disease, Asperger Disorder, Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, Bedwetting (Enuresis), Binge Eating Disorder, Depression, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,
Genital Herpes, Genital Warts, Gonorrhea, Homelessness, Infertility, Syphilis… the
list goes on and on and on and on.
Normally, such detailed health information would fall under federal law and could not be disclosed
or sold without consent. But because these data harvesters rely on indirect sources of information
instead of medical records, they're able to sidestep regulations put in place to protect the privacy
of people's health data.
MEBbase isn't the only company exploiting these loopholes. By the industry's own estimates, there
are something like 4,000 for-profit intel companies operating in the United States. Many of them sell
information that would normally be restricted under federal law. They offer all sorts of targeted dossier
collections on
every population segments of our society, from the affluent to the extremely vulnerable:
people with drug addictions
detailed personal info on police officers and other government employees
people with bad credit/bankruptcies
minorities who've used payday loan services
domestic violence shelter locations (normally these addresses would be shielded by law)
elderly gamblers
If you want to see how this kind of profile data can be used to scam unsuspecting individuals, look
no further than a Richard Guthrie, an Iowa retiree who had his life savings siphoned out of his bank
account. Their weapon of choice: databases bought from large for-profit data brokers listing retirees
who entered sweepstakes and bought lottery tickets.
Here's a 2007 New York Times story
describing the racket:
Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in
a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold
his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.
InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million older people "looking for
ways to make money," and "Suffering Seniors," 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease.
"Oldies but Goodies" contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list
said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."
Data brokers argue that cases like Guthrie are an anomaly - a once-in-a-blue-moon tragedy in an
industry that takes privacy and legal conduct seriously. But cases of identity thieves and sophistical
con-rings obtaining data from for-profit intel businesses abound. Scammers are a lucrative source of
revenue. Their money is just as good as anyone else's. And some of the profile "products" offered by
the industry seem tailored specifically to fraud use.
As Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Yves Leblanc told the New York Times: "Only one kind of
customer wants to buy lists of seniors interested in lotteries and sweepstakes: criminals. If someone
advertises a list by saying it contains gullible or elderly people, it's like putting out a sign saying
'Thieves welcome here.'"
So what is InfoUSA, exactly? What kind of company would create and sell lists customized for use
by scammers and cons?
As it turns out, InfoUSA is not some fringe or shady outfit, but a hugely profitable politically
connected company. InfoUSA was started by Vin Gupta in the 1970s as a basement operation hawking detailed
lists of RV and mobile home dealers. The company quickly expanded into other areas and began providing
business intel services to thousands of businesses. By 2000, the company raised more than $30
million in venture capital funding from major Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
By then, InfoUSA boasted of having information on 230 million consumers. A few years later, InfoUSA
counted the biggest Valley companies as its clients, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. It
got involved not only in raw data and dossiers, but moved into payroll and financial, conducted polling
and opinion research, partnered with CNN, vetted employees and provided customized services for law
enforcement and all sorts of federal and government agencies: processing government payments, helping
states locate tax cheats and even administrating President Bill Clinton "Welfare to Work" program.
Which is not surprising, as Vin Gupta is a major and
close political
supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
In 2008, Gupta was sued by InfoUSA shareholders for inappropriately using corporate funds. Shareholders
accused of Gupta of illegally funneling corporate money to fund an extravagant lifestyle and curry
political favor. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit questioned why Gupta used private corporate
jets to fly the Clintons on personal and campaign trips, and why Gupta awarded Bill Clinton a $3.3
million consulting gig.
As a result of the scandal, InfoUSA was threatened with delisting from Nasdaq, Gupta was forced
out and the company was snapped up for half a billion dollars by CCMP Capital Advisors, a major private
equity firm spun off from JP Morgan in 2006. Today, InfoUSA continues to do business under the name
Infogroup, and has nearly 4,000 employees working in nine countries.
As big as Infogroup is, there are dozens of other for-profit intelligence businesses that are even
bigger: massive multi-national intel conglomerates with revenues in the billions of dollars. Some of
them, like Lexis-Nexis and Experian, are well known, but mostly these are outfits that few Americans
have heard of, with names like Epsilon, Altegrity and Acxiom.
These for-profit intel behemoths are involved in everything from debt collection to credit reports
to consumer tracking to healthcare analysis, and provide all manner of tailored services to government
and law enforcement around the world. For instance, Acxiom has done business with most major corporations,
and boasts of intel on "500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points
per person. That includes a majority of adults in the United States," according to the
New York Times.
This data is analyzed and sliced in increasingly sophisticated and intrusive ways to profile and
predict behavior. Merchants are using it customize shopping experience- Target
launched
a program to figure out if a woman shopper was pregnant and when the baby would be born, "even
if she didn't want us to know." Life insurance companies are experimenting with predictive consumer
intel to estimate life expectancy and determine eligibility for life insurance policies. Meanwhile,
health insurance companies are raking over this data in order to deny and challenge the medical claims
of their policyholders.
Even more alarming, large employers are turning to for-profit intelligence to mine and monitor the
lifestyles and habits of their workers outside the workplace. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal
described how employers have partnered with health insurance companies to monitor workers for "health-adverse"
behavior that could lead to higher medical expenses down the line:
Your company already knows whether you have been taking your meds, getting your teeth cleaned and
going for regular medical checkups. Now some employers or their insurance companies are tracking what
staffers eat, where they shop and how much weight they are putting on - and taking action to keep
them in line.
But companies also have started scrutinizing employees' other behavior more discreetly. Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of North Carolina recently began buying spending data on more than 3 million people
in its employer group plans. If someone, say, purchases plus-size clothing, the health plan could
flag him for potential obesity - and then call or send mailings offering weight-loss solutions.
…"Everybody is using these databases to sell you stuff," says Daryl Wansink, director of health
economics for the Blue Cross unit. "We happen to be trying to sell you something that can get you
healthier."
"As an employer, I want you on that medication that you need to be on," says Julie Stone, a HR expert
at Towers Watson told the Wall Street Journal.
Companies might try to frame it as a health issue. I mean, what kind of asshole could be against
employers caring about the wellbeing of their workers? But their ultimate concern has nothing to do
with the employee health. It's all about the brutal bottom line: keeping costs down.
An employer monitoring and controlling your activity outside of work? You don't have to be union
agitator to see the problems with this kind of mindset and where it could lead. Because there are lots
of things that some employers might want to know about your personal life, and not only to "keep costs
down." It could be anything: to weed out people based on undesirable habits or discriminate against
workers based on sexual orientation, regulation and political beliefs.
It's not difficult to imagine that a large corporation facing a labor unrest or a unionization drive
would be interested in proactively flagging potential troublemakers by pinpointing employees that might
be sympathetic to the cause. But the technology and data is already here for wide and easy application:
did a worker watch certain political documentaries, donate to environmental non-profits, join an animal
rights Facebook group, tweet out support for Occupy Wall Street, subscribe to the Nation or Jacobin,
buy Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"? Or maybe the worker simply rented one of Michael Moore's films?
Run your payroll through one of the massive consumer intel databases and look if there is any matchup.
Bound to be plenty of unpleasant surprises for HR!
This has happened in the past, although in a cruder and more limited way. In the 1950s, for instance,
some lefty intellectuals had their lefty newspapers and mags delivered to P.O. boxes instead of their
home address, worrying that otherwise they'd get tagged as Commie symps. That might have worked
in the past. But with the power of private intel companies, today there's nowhere to hide.
FTC Commissioner Julie Brill has repeatedly voiced concern that unregulated data being amassed by
for-profit intel companies would be used to discriminate and deny employment, and to determine consumer
access to everything from credit to insurance to housing. "As Big Data algorithms become more accurate
and powerful, consumers need to know a lot more about the ways in which their data is used," she told
the Wall Street Journal.
Pam Dixon, executive director of the Privacy World Forum, agrees. Dixon frequently testifies on
Capitol Hill to warn about the growing danger to privacy and civil liberties posed by big data and
for-profit intelligence. In Congressional testimony back in 2009, Dixon called this growing mountain
of data the "modern permanent record" and explained that users of these new intel capabilities will
inevitably expand to include not just marketers and law enforcement, but insurance companies, employers,
landlords, schools, parents, scammers and stalkers. "The information – like credit reports – will be
used to make basic decisions about the ability of individual to travel, participate in the economy,
find opportunities, find places to live, purchase goods and services, and make judgments about the
importance, worthiness, and interests of individuals."
* * *
For the past year, Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV has been conducting a Senate Commerce Committee
investigation of the data broker industry and how it affects consumers. The committee finished its
investigation last week without reaching any real conclusions, but issued a report warning about the
dangers posed by the for-profit intel industry and the need for further action by lawmakers. The report
noted with concern that many of these firms failed to cooperate with the investigation into their business
practices:
Data brokers operate behind a veil of secrecy. Three of the largest companies – Acxiom, Experian,
and Epsilon – to date have been similarly secretive with the Committee with respect to their practices,
refusing to identify the specific sources of their data or the customers who purchase it. … The refusal
by several major data broker companies to provide the Committee complete responses regarding data
sources and customers only reinforces the aura of secrecy surrounding the industry.
Rockefeller's investigation was an important first step breaking open this secretive industry, but
it was missing one notable element. Despite its focus on companies that feed on people's personal data,
the investigation did not include Google or the other big Surveillance Valley data munchers. And that's
too bad. Because if anything, the investigation into data brokers only highlighted the danger posed
by the consumer-facing data companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Apple.
As intrusive as data brokers are, the level of detail in the information they compile on Americans
pales to what can be vacuumed up by a company like Google. To compile their dossiers, traditional data
brokers rely on mostly indirect intel: what people buy, where they vacation, what websites they visit.
Google, on the other hand, has access to the raw uncensored contents of your inner life: personal emails,
chats, the diary entries and medical records that we store in the cloud, our personal communication
with doctors, lawyers, psychologists, friends. Data brokers know us through our spending habits. Google
accesses the unfiltered details of our personal lives.
A recent study showed that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having their online activity
tracked and analyzed. Seventy-three percent of people polled for the
Pew Internet & American Life Project viewed the tracking of their search history as an invasion
of privacy, while 68 percent were against targeted advertising, replying: "I don't like having my online
behavior tracked and analyzed."
This isn't news to companies like Google, which last year warned shareholders: "Privacy concerns
relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using
our products and services."
Little wonder then that Google, and the rest of Surveillance Valley, is terrified that the
conversation about surveillance could soon broaden to include not only government espionage, but for-profit
spying as well.
In November Google agreed to pay a $17 million fine to settle allegations that it secretly
tracked Web users by placing special digital files on the Web browsers of their smartphones.
(Reuters) - Google Inc has removed an experimental privacy feature from its Android mobile software
that had allowed users to block apps from collecting personal information such as address book data
and a user's location.
The change means that owners of smartphones using Android 4.4.2, the latest version of the world's
most popular operating system for mobile devices released this week, must provide access to their personal
data in order to use certain apps.
A company spokesman said the feature had been included by accident in Android 4.3, the version released
last summer.
"We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the
feature rather than improving it," said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. The digital rights website first publicized the change in a blog post on Friday.
Android users who wish to retain the privacy controls by not upgrading to Android 4.4.2 could be
vulnerable to security risks, Eckersley said. "For the time being, users will need to chose between
either privacy or security on the Android devices, but not both."
Many third-party apps for Android devices, such as music-identifying service Shazam and popular
smartphone flashlight apps, require access to personal information that does not always have an obvious
connection to the app's functionality, such as phone call information and location data.
The privacy feature allowed users to pick and choose which personal data a third-party app can collect,
Eckersley said. Users had to install a special Apps Ops Launcher software, which was created by another
company, in order to access the hidden privacy controls.
Android software was loaded on 81 percent of all smartphones shipped worldwide in the third quarter,
according to industry research firm IDC. Apple Inc's iOS, the software used on the iPhone, had 12.9
percent market share.
Privacy has become an increasingly important issue as smartphones, which are loaded with consumers'
personal information, become the primary computing device for many consumers. In November Google agreed
to pay a $17 million fine to settle allegations that it secretly tracked Web users by placing special
digital files on the Web browsers of their smartphones.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
For months, leading technology companies have been buffeted by revelations about government spying
on their customers' data, which they believe are undermining confidence in their services.
"Both sides are saying, 'My biggest issue right now is trust,' " said Matthew Prince, co-founder
and chief executive of CloudFlare, an Internet start-up. "If you're on the White House side, the issue
is they're getting beaten up because they're seen as technically incompetent. On the other side, the
tech industry needs the White House right now to give a stern rebuke to the N.S.A. and put in real
procedures to rein in a program that feels like it's out of control."
The meeting of Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 15 executives from the likes of
Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo came a week after those companies and other giants, usually archrivals,
united in a public campaign calling for reform in government surveillance practices.
On Monday, a federal district judge ruled that the N.S.A. sweep of data from all Americans' phone
calls
was unconstitutional, a ruling that added import to the discussions.
...Several executives, including Ms. Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, expressed concerned that
foreign countries may now decide to prevent all the user data generated by users in a foreign country
from flowing to the United States, the people said. One such law has been proposed in Brazil. The executives
said these laws would significantly hurt their businesses and America's start-up economy.
...The meeting reflected a shift in the tech sector's once-close relationship with Mr. Obama, whose
2008 election many industry executives generously supported.
Chuck Woods, ID
I don't see how there can be any trust restored until the administration changes it's outlook on
Edward Snowden. Without the revelations about wholesale spying and illegal data collection by Snowden
we would not even be having this national discussion. President Obama will be on the wrong side of
history if he doesn't recognize the value of this issue. It would be sad if he is remembered as the
president of drones and spying on citizens. Perhaps healthcare will save him from that. But isn't
about time he stood up to the spooks and hawks who pull many of the levers.
Deregulate_This, Oregon
President Obama meets with these particular tech CEOs? The same ones who claim there are no CS
graduates in America? The same ones who abuse the H-1B visa program and undercut American wages? The
same ones who happily signed on to sell information to the C.I.A. and N.S.A.? (Our tax dollars pay
for access to their data - see previous NYT articles about payouts to tech companies)
I've worked in the tech industry for 15 years and have seen massive layoffs of Americans while
they send jobs overseas. Now, they are being used as Obama's advisers? What could they possibly advise?
"Lower Wages" "Allow us to outsource more" "Allow us to have permanent unpaid interns" "keep paying
us for private user information"?
eric glen
Hopkinton, NH
"The Adminstration told executives that government action related to NSA surveillance would happen
in the new year. . . "
Yeah, and if you like your plan you can keep your plan, period.
This article to some degree depicts our President as somehow an outsider to the NSA workings.
He's the commander in chief. He could have changed the system five years ago if he wanted to.
Our President has authorized the spying that has gone on and seeks to prosecute Snowden to the
fulll extent of the law. Why, because President Obama believes the government should spy on us.
If only Snowden were an "undocumented worker", he would be safe from prosecution whatever his crimes.
AdamOnDemand, Bloomingdale, NJ
Unchecked power to spy is like any other unchecked power: it corrupts, and while it may be intended
for only the best reasons, it won't be used only or even primarily for them for long...
senatordl
new jersey
"The president made clear his belief in an open, free and innovative Internet ". Anyone who believes
that is delusional! this president and his congressional co=conspirators are the worst thing that
has ever happened to the US. the last thing they believe in is something that is open let alone free.
we are no longer free because they take our freedom of choice away on virtually everything. The worst
part is people on the government dole don't see it or don't care. if we have not lost what we fought
for during several wars then this war is even more insidious because most people are not even aware
that it's being waged against them.
Brooklyn Song, Brooklyn
NYT Pick
Facebook and Google are 1) speaking with Obama about how bad the NSA spying is for business, and
b) buying fiber optic cables to evade government spying out their customers (us).
In other words, giant corporations are the good guys now. Brave new world.
rcrogers6, Durham, NC
It's a little late to install a competent IT professional to run the website development contract
- or should I say contracts. The mismanagement began when President Obama eschewed competent advice
and turned the ACA implementation over to the White House staffers who shepherded it through Congress.
This concrete demonstration of the President's lack of any managerial background and unwillingness
to accept expert advice has permeated his presidency and led to the disappointment of those of us
who voted for him - twice.
I cannot imagine anything concerning either of the meeting's subjects that would warrant that grin
or the reciprocating smiles of the apparent sycophants. We will soon see what impact this president's
ignorance and arrogance has had on the fortunes of the Democratic Party in the 2014 elections. Next
time, I will try not to be influenced by a charismatic candidate and look for one who brings some
experience to the table. I honestly had looked forward to change and a new era in politics. Well,
in regard to the Legislative Branch, that's what I got - in the form of a disaster. The Executive,
in lieu of change, has just delivered more of the same with a soupcon of additional incompetence.
alan, United States
Since it is obvious to even a blind man that the government has no real desire to protect Americans
from illegal spying< I hope Brazil and other nations will pass laws that forces tech companies to
keep their citizens data in their respective countries.
This will costs the tech industries billions of dollars. That is the only way they will get out
of bed with the government. They can cry foul all they want to but it sounds hollows. After all, AT&T
and the other phone companies turned over call records to the government after 911 without a whimper.
Maybe when enough people stop using their services or go with a company that is serious about users'
privacy, Microsoft and the rest will do the right thing.
Nathan an Expat, China
The Internet companies' real concern is loss of overseas markets due to revelations they were providing
voluntary and/or unwitting back door access to their customer data to US intelligence services. If
their overseas clientele and their governments wake up this might lead to a "balkanisation!" of the
Internet -- that translates into loss of market share for the major players. Most amusing is that
major telecommunication companies like CISCO, Juniper and Alcatel who by definition have to be major
players in this activity have managed with the collusion of mainstream media to keep a low profile
on this. No visits to the White House for them because they are fully in line with these programs
and have been for decades. Meanwhile, the US senators advise/warn foreigners not to buy telecommunication
systems from China's Huawei because you know . . .
Jerry, New York
It's nice when the families get together to decide how to divide control over citizens and their
money. God bless them.
Trenton, Washington, D.C.
The tech moguls are creating the devices and application that track the 99 percent's every move,
thought and action--technology they sell to the federal government. They lobby for privatizing of
public services so they can exert even greater control.
And, yeah, if they're not Libertarians feeding at the public trough, they're Democrats.
All it will take is one well-coordinated nationwide terrorist attack and we'll all be in virtual
lock-down via technology created and peddled by these children.
Watch for the false flag.
Jim Michie, Bethesda, Maryland
What amazes me is how and why Barack Obama keeps flashing those toothy smiles. Here is a man who
"gave us hope" and "promised" us so much, but delivered so little, continuing many of the ugly, dark
policies of the Bush regime and adding his own. Among so many betrayals, Obama has failed to close
his gulag, Guantanamo, failed to bring all of our troops home, expanded his war capabilities, failed
to prosecute his felon friends on Wall Street and in the too-big-to-jail banks, launched a war on
both whistleblowers and journalists, worked closely with the for-profit "health insurance industry"
to create a "Frankenstein health care plan" and I could go on and on and on and on. "Fading trust,"
you say, New York Times? Shouldn't your headline read, "Tech Leaders and Obama Find Shared Problem:
Lost Public Trust"!
John, Hartford
Reflects a shift? It actually reflects the closeness and interdependence of the relationship between
government the tech industry. At times I wonder who writes these articles, 28 year old techno whizzes
who may know all about IT but very little about the realities of power?
66hawk, Gainesville, VA
This article feel like empty calories to me. The characterization of the meeting is mostly critical
when it seems that the fact that the meeting was held and that an exchange of viewpoints was accomplished
made the meeting a success. I have no doubt that Obama will address some of the concerns that the
tech industry has while still maintaining the ability to protect our nation from terrorists. The problem
of getting people to trust that social media and the internet are totally secure is probably unsolvable.
If you don't want someone to have access to your information, you certainly don't want to use Facebook.
Pat Choate, Washington, Va.
The expose of the NSA excesses and that Agency's linkages with these corporations is taking a heavy
tool on these companies' foreign-derived bottom line and global reputation. What citizen or company
in any foreign country wants to do business with a corporation that is secretly funneling their clients'
data to US spy agencies.
Big Tech's concern for their profits will result in more pressures for "reforms" at NSA than anything
the Congress, Courts or Administration would ever do on their own.
Steve Fankuchen, Oakland CA
The information Americans gladly give to private companies is more of a threat to individual well-being
and collective democracy than the egregious data collecting of the government. The real danger is
that Apple is much more popular than the government, because people understand what their iPod does
for them but not what the government does for them.
The workings of the government are, compared to that of the big tech corporations, quite transparent.
You may or may not like the influence of the Koch brothers money on politics, but at least it all
plays out in a relatively public arena. Google not so much. And, while our electoral process is very
far from perfect, you have more of an influence on that than you do on corporate policy. Have you
tried voting Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg out of office?
What the government is doing now it has done for decades, spying with whatever tools were available.
They may have new tools, but so do those they want to spy on. What is different now is that there
are huge, wealthy corporations whose profit largely come from spying and espionage i.e. the collection
of your info with or without your permission. And to the extent that you may have become dependent
on the internet and these companies, they simply make you an offer you can't refuse.
Dean Charles Marshall, California
Steve your comment is "spot on". Our deification of technology is beyond absurd. At the end of
the day the Internet has become a vast "sink hole" of distraction where tech companies rake in billions
covertly pimping off our private information in exchange for bits and bits of superfluous and dubious
information we crave, but for reasons we can't explain. Thanks to companies like Google, Apple and
Facebook we've become a nation of techno zombies enamored with the trivial pursuit.
ronco, San Francisco
Those private companies don't intentionally weaken security and encryption standards in order to
make breaking into encrypted data streams easier. Those companies make a living by ensuring the integrity
of the data that you host with them. One has choices whether to give data to those companies in order
to get services from them or to pay in a more traditional model. When a company is found to play loosely
with data they are sussed out very quickly and very publicly. We don't have a recourse against the
NSA - voting is a very slow process.
While researchers have known about the weaknesses introduced into data encryption standard algorithms
by the NSA, none of them spoke up about it because of the chilling effect it would have on getting
grants for their research.
It is a vicious circle that is not only strengthened by criminal prosecution but also character
assassination and black listing at government levels. There's nothing inherently good or evil about
corporations or their motives but I usually have a choice about where I purchase goods and services
or even build my own company to compete. The fact that we can't trust our government to do the right
thing and haven't been able to have that trust since 9/11 is a problem because one either has to wait
for the voting process to eventually work (a generation?) or just vote with their feet.
Scientella, palo alto
Spying by the NSA is unconstitutional.
Silicon Valley has changed from a benevolent geek town to run by ruthless, parasitic, dishonest, money
crazed functionaries of the policed state.
Jack O'Hanlon
San Juan Islands
Where was Cisco? If you want to ask some deep questions about a technology company that has sold
billions of dollars worth of IP routing and switching equipment worldwide that now seems to have engineered
back door access for the NSA, Cisco would be the banner carrier.
No subsea system, no terrestrial network can function without Cisco equipment in line somewhere.
When Cisco claims it drives the Internet, it is not kidding.
Ironic in this is the fact that Cisco has lobbied to keep Huawei out of U.S. carrier networks based
on "security issues" that have been discussed in general terms, ie, backdoors that would allow the
Chinese to compromise U.S. communications.
It now seems that Cisco had some direct experience in understanding this sort of activity.
You can't pick off photonic transmissions (the fiber optic cable hacks revealed in the Snowden
documents) unless you can hack the IP routers that send the traffic across the cables. A pure photonic
hack is a futuristic endeavour, one that can be conducted so long as the producer of all optic routing
has built in back door access at the laser level. Not so easy. All optic routing is called O-O-O,
for optical-optical-optical transmission and destination routing of Internet Protocol traffic.
Bill Appledorf, British Columbia
Give me a break.
Corporate America spies on everyone to personalize the limits of the cognitive sandbox each consumer
wanders in.
The NSA's job is to make sure no one extricates themselves from virtual reality, discovers the
planet Earth, and finds out what global capitalism has been doing to it and the people who live here.
Information technology and covert intelligence are the public and secret sides of one and the same
coin.
Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel, Huawei and a scant few others build what are called - O-E-O routers, for
optical-electrical-optical transmission. The NSA is hacking the E part of this, with the vendors'
potential help, obviously.
Bruce, San Diego, CA
I believe I have a way to regain the public trust: Give Mr. Snowden permission to re-enter the
US, give him a Presidential pardon and award him the Congressional Gold Metal. Mr. Snowden maybe labeled
a traitor by some in government; if so he is in fine company: Mr. King, Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Mandela, Mr.
Patrick Henry. All of whom have been called "Traitor" and all of whom like Mr. Snowden shook up the
established order for the betterment of society. Some like Mr. King, Gandhi & Henry paid the ultimate
price for their beliefs.
Mr. Snowden has done more to advance the cause of freedom in the US and around the world than anyone
for a long, long time. In the process he has made the "Powers That Be" very uncomfortable. Well done
Sir!
borntorun45, NY
Do you feel that Snowden should be granted a Presidential pardon for cheating on the exam to obtain
employment as a contractor for the NSA in Hawaii with the specific intent of mining data that he should
not have had access to in the first place? Maybe you feel that Snowden should be pardoned for absconding
to Hong Kong with his stolen files - do you find his fleeing the country of his own accord particularly
heroic, proper, or necessary? Or, should he receive a pardon for then making that intelligence available
to people who have profited by the purloined intelligence by publishing it for all the world to see,
jeopardizing America's security and causing a strain on foreign relations?
Snowden carefully planned his mission, he didn't simply come upon the "leaked files" through his
work in Hawaii - he has admitted to taking the job with Booz Allen specifically to obtain the files
he stole. He was so much more than a whistleblower - he broke into and entered areas of the NSA he
had no legal access to, and he download millions of files. Imagine anyone working in private business
doing such a thing, let alone someone who took an oath of secrecy.
How exactly has "Mr. Snowden... done more to advance the cause of freedom in the US and around
the world"? We are all being watched whenever we use our computers, cell phones, debit cards - it's
the digital age, my friend, and the US government's surveillance of you should be the least of your
worries.
Che Beauchard, Manhattan
Can't the photo shown with this article be used as evidence in a trial for a RICO violation? Surely
the government has become a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization in collusion with these corporations.
infinityON, NJ
Sorry, I am having a hard time believing that Google and Facebook are concerned about their users
privacy. They are more worried about their bottom lines due to the Snowden revelations. And we can
add in the Obama Administration not being concerned about Americans privacy.
Patrick Dugan, Berkeley, CA
Google's entire business is built on respecting the privacy of their users. Sure they've misstepped
in the past, usually not on purpose, but the presumption that they blatantly disrespect users and
their privacy is uninformed.
Colenso, Cairns
'Try working part time at WalMart for awhile and then tell me that the NSA is your biggest problem.'
~ paul, CA
I sympathise. Nevertheless, if you are a resident of a US town where there's a Walmart or some
such, you can choose whether or not to work for Wal-Mart Stores Inc or for some other exploitative
US employer. If you don't like it, then you can improve your qualifications or skills, move to another
town or even another country. That's always been the American way.
No one, however, US citizen or non-citizen, resident or non-resident in the USA, has any direct
say whatsoever in what the US National Security Agency decides to do to you. Even the so-called 'courts'
that oversee the NSA admit no litigant to the proceedings.
To take up your challenge, therefore, with the exception of those who live in North Korea and similar
jurisdictions, I say yes - the NSA *is* everyone's biggest problem.
A slide from an internal NSA presentation indicating that the agency
uses at least one Google cookie as a way to identify targets for exploitation. (Washington Post)
The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers
to track consumers, using "cookies" and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and
to bolster surveillance.
The
agency's internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that
when companies follow consumers on the Internet to better serve them advertising, the technique opens
the door for similar tracking by the government. The slides also suggest that the agency is using these
tracking techniques to help identify targets for offensive hacking operations.
For years, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of commercial tracking tools to
identify and target consumers with advertisements. The online ad industry has said its practices are
innocuous and benefit consumers by serving them ads that are more likely to be of interest to them.
The revelation that the NSA is piggybacking on these commercial technologies could shift that debate,
handing privacy advocates a new argument for reining in commercial surveillance.
According to
the documents, the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are using the small tracking files or
"cookies" that advertising networks place on computers to identify people browsing the Internet. The
intelligence agencies have found particular use for a part of a Google-specific tracking mechanism
known as the "PREF" cookie. These cookies typically don't contain personal information, such as someone's
name or e-mail address, but they do contain numeric codes that enable Web sites to uniquely identify
a person's browser.
In addition to tracking Web visits, this cookie allows NSA to single out an individual's communications
among the sea of Internet data in order to send out software that can hack that person's computer.
The slides say the cookies are used to "enable remote exploitation," although the specific attacks
used by the NSA against targets are not addressed in these
documents.
The NSA's use of cookies isn't a technique for sifting through vast amounts of information to find
suspicious behavior; rather, it lets NSA home in on someone already under suspicion - akin to when
soldiers shine laser pointers on a target to identify it for laser-guided bombs.
Separately, the NSA is also using commercially gathered information to help it locate mobile devices
around the world, the
documents show. Many smartphone apps running on iPhones and Android devices, and the Apple and
Google operating systems themselves, track the location of each device, often without a clear warning
to the phone's owner. This information is more specific than the broader location data the government
is collecting from cellular phone networks, as
reported by the Post last week.
"On a macro level, 'we need to track everyone everywhere for advertising' translates into 'the government
being able to track everyone everywhere,'" says Chris Hoofnagle, a lecturer in residence at UC Berkeley
Law. "It's hard to avoid."
These specific slides do not indicate how the NSA obtains Google PREF cookies or whether the company
cooperates in these programs, but other documents reviewed by the Post indicate that cookie information
is among the data NSA can obtain with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order. If the NSA gets
the data that way, the companies know and are legally compelled to assist.
The NSA declined to comment on the specific tactics outlined in this story, but an NSA spokesman
sent the Post a statement: "As we've said before, NSA, within its lawful mission to collect foreign
intelligence to protect the United States, uses intelligence tools to understand the intent of foreign
adversaries and prevent them from bringing harm to innocent Americans."
Google declined to comment for this article, but chief executive Larry Page joined the leaders of
other technology companies earlier this week in calling for an end to bulk collection of user data
and for new limits on court-approved surveillance requests. "The security of users' data is critical,
which is why we've invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests
for information," Page said in a
statement on the coalition's Web site. "This is undermined by
the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments
around the world."
How consumers are tracked online
Internet companies store small files called cookies on users' computers to uniquely identify them
for ad-targeting and other purposes across many different Web sites. This advertising-driven business
model pays for many of the services, like e-mail accounts, that consumers have come to expect to have
for free. Yet few are aware of the full extent to which advertisers, services and Web sites track their
activities across the Web and mobile devices. These data collection mechanisms are invisible to all
but the most sophisticated users -- and the tools to opt-out or block them have limited effectiveness.
Privacy advocates have pushed to create a "Do Not Track" system allowing consumers to opt out of
such tracking. But Jonathan Mayer of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, who has been active
in that push, says "Do Not Track efforts are stalled out." They ground to a halt when the Digital Advertising
Alliance, a trade group representing online ad companies,
abandoned the effort in September after clashes over the proposed policy. One of the primary
issues of contention was whether consumers would be able to opt out of all tracking, or just not
be served advertisements based on tracking.
Some browsers, such as Apple's Safari, automatically block a type of code known as "third-party
cookies," which are often placed by companies that advertise on the site being visited. Other browsers
such as Mozilla's Firefox are also experimenting with that idea. But such settings won't prevent users
from receiving cookies directly from the primary sites they visit or services they use.
Google's PREF Cookie
Google assigns a unique PREF cookie anytime someone's browser makes a connection to any of the
company's Web properties or services. This can occur when consumers directly use Google services such
as Search or Maps, or when they visit Web sites that contain embedded "widgets" for the company's social
media platform Google Plus. That cookie contains a code that allows Google to uniquely track users
to "personalize ads"
and measure how they use other Google products.
Given the widespread use of Google services and widgets, most Web users are likely to have a Google
PREF cookie even if they've never visited a Google property directly.
That PREF cookie is specifically mentioned in an internal NSA slide, which reference the NSA using
GooglePREFID, their shorthand for the unique numeric identifier contained within Google's PREF cookie.
Special Source Operations (SSO) is an NSA division that works with private companies to scoop up data
as it flows over the Internet's backbone and from technology companies' own systems. The slide indicates
that SSO was sharing information containing "logins, cookies, and GooglePREFID" with another NSA division
called Tailored Access Operations, which engages in offensive hacking operations. SSO also shares the
information with the British intelligence agency GCHQ.
"This shows a link between the sort of tracking that's done by Web sites for analytics and advertising
and NSA exploitation activities," says Ed Felten, a computer scientist at Princeton University. "By
allowing themselves to be tracked for analytic or advertising at least some users are making themselves
more vulnerable to exploitation."
This isn't the first time Google cookies have been highlighted in the NSA's attempts to identify
targets to hack. A presentation released in October by the Guardian called "Tor
Stinks" indicates that the agency was using cookies for DoubleClick.net, Google's third-party advertising
service, in an attempt to identify users of the Internet anonymization tool Tor when they switched
to regular browsing. "It's similar in the sense that you see the use of an unique ID in the cookie
to allow an eavesdropper to connect the activities of a user over time," says Felten.
I was first introduced to Siva Vaidhyanathan's work a few years ago when he gave a presentation
on the Google Books Project, a project in which my institution was set to participate with full force.
As a librarian with a love of technology but a hearty skepticism about its effects on society, I expected
the presentation to be a love letter to Google. Instead the presentation turned out to be a love letter
to libraries and librarians, and I have been a fan of his ever since.
I found the same his latest book, the "Googlization of Everything". The idea of "techno-fundamentalism"
resonated deeply with me as I have struggled with efforts in my profession to abandon tried and true
methods of librarianship and information science in the rush to embrace the latest gadget or newest
technology. Indeed, American culture (and it could be argued Western culture as well) has become
fascinated with all things tech to the point of techno-fundamentalism, or a blind faith in technology
and its ability to solve all the world's problems. Technology has done great things for the human
race, but has also had weighty consequences as well.
The author does not seek to destroy Google or even hope for its demise. Instead he argues that
we need to take back the objects of our culture from Google and others who, in the name of technology,
progress, faster search and access, would seek to monopolize them and make money from them. I
appreciate Dr. Vaidhyanathan's vision for a Human Knowledge Project, and hope to assist him and others
in making that a reality. True change will only come about through deliberation, debate, and collaboration.
It will not be handed down from a "benevolent giant" like Google.
Frank A. Pasquale III on March 12, 2011
A Must-Read on Where "Knowing" is Going
Google's been in the news a lot the past week. Concerned about the quality of their search results,
they're imposing new penalties on "content farms" and certain firms, including JC Penney and Overstock.com.
Accusations are flying fast and furious; the "antichrist of Silicon Valley" has flatly told the Googlers
to "stop cheating."
As the debate heats up and accelerates in internet time, it's a pleasure to turn to Siva Vaidhyanathan's
The Googlization of Everything, a carefully considered take on the company composed over the past
five years. After this week is over, no one is going to really care whether Google properly punished
JC Penney for scheming its way to the top non-paid search slot for "grommet top curtains." But our
culture will be influenced in ways large and small by Google's years of dominance, whatever happens
in coming years. I don't have time to write a full review now, but I do want to highlight some key
concepts in Googlization, since they will have lasting relevance for studies of technology, law, and
media for years to come.
Cryptopicon
Dan Solove helped shift the privacy conversation from "Orwell to Kafka" in a number of works over
the past decade. Other scholars of surveillance have first used, and then criticized, the concept
of the "Panopticon" as a master metaphor for the conformity-inducing pressures of ubiquitous monitoring.
Vaidhyanathan observes that monitoring is now so ubiquitous, most people have given up trying
to conform. As he observes,
[T]he forces at work in Europe, North America, and much of the rest of the world are the opposite
of a Panopticon: they involve not the subjection of the individual to the gaze of a single, centralized
authority, but the surveillance of the individual, potentially by all, always by many. We have a "cryptopticon"
(for lack of a better word). Unlike Bentham's prisoners, we don't know all the ways in which we are
being watched or profiled--we simply know that we are. And we don't regulate our behavior under the
gaze of surveillance: instead, we don't seem to care.
Of course, that final "we" is a bit overinclusive, for as Vaidhyanathan later shows in a wonderful
section on the diverging cultural repsonses to Google Street View, there are bastions of resistance
to the technology:
One search engine professional, Osamu Higuchi, posted an open letter to Google staff in Japan on
his blog in August 2008. The letter urged Google staff to explain to their partners in the United
States that Street View demonstrates a lack of understanding of some important aspects of daily life
in Japan. Osamu urged Google to remove largely residential roads from Street View. "The residential
roads of Japan's urban areas are part of people's living space, and it is impolite to photograph other
people's living spaces," Osamu wrote. . . .
A person walking down the street peering into residents' yards would be watched right back by offended
residents, who would consider calling the police to report such dangerous and antisocial behavior.
But with Google Street View, the residents can't see or know who is peeping.39 Osamu's pleas and concerns
were shared by enough others in Japan that by May 2009, Google announced it would reshoot its Street
View images of Japanese cities with the cameras mounted lower, to avoid peering over hedges and fences.
There are a number of other examples in the book of technology being modified to adopt to cultural
norms. But the dominant story is of cultural norms being reshaped by deployment of new technologies.
Public Failure
Progressives often cite "market failure" as a reason for regulation. But the term itself has
a hidden laissez-faire bias, implying that markets generally succeed and that intervention is extraordinary.
Vaidhyanathan balances the playing field by introducing the idea of the "public failure," which itself
is parasitic on a larger vision of endeavors naturally performed or sponsored by government or civil
society. As he explains,
[N]eoliberalism. . . .had its roots in two prominent ideologies: techno-fundamentalism, an
optimistic belief in the power of technology to solve problems . . . and market fundamentalism, the
notion that most problems are better (at least more efficiently) solved by the actions of private
parties rather than by state oversight or investment.
Neoliberalism [included] . . . substantial state subsidy and support for firms that promulgated
the neoliberal model and supported its political champions. But in the end the private sector calls
the shots and apportions (or hoards) resources, as the instruments once used to rein in the excesses
of firms have been systematically dismantled. . . . .
Google has deftly capitalized on a thirty-year tradition of "public failure," chiefly in the United
States but in much of the rest of the world as well. Public failure, in contrast, occurs when instruments
of the state cannot satisfy public needs and deliver services effectively. This failure occurs not
necessarily because the state is the inappropriate agent to solve a particular problem (although there
are plenty of areas in which state service is inefficient and counterproductive); it may occur when
the public sector has been intentionally dismantled, degraded, or underfunded, while expectations
for its performance remain high.
Vaidhyanathan's call for a "Human Knowledge Project" in response to this trend is one of the few
tech policy proposals that is bold, ambitious, and comprehensive enough to address the challenges
posed by privatized knowledge systems.
Riparchivist
"...we are not Google's customers: we are its product", March 27, 2011
From the observation that "...we are not Google's customers: we are its product" (p.3) through
the suggestion of a Human Knowledge Project I found this book to be a well-written and informative
read.
Mr. Vaidhyanathan gives good detail regarding the many fingers that Google has in so much of the
Internet's tools and products while always reminding us that Google is an advertising company,
an advertising company that does its work through seemingly free tools that they make.
These product's default settings are designed to collect the maximum data about our personal use
of the Web. So, if you use Google's products (or any other product) look at the default settings and
change them to something that you can live with, or do without.
Jonathan Zittrain "JZ" (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Provocative and timely, March 15, 2011
The Googlization of Everything offers a crisp vision for what kind of information society we should
be building. That one might not agree with it is a feature -- this is a book that doesn't state the
obvious. Rather, it pushes us to rethink what we take for granted, noticing the medium in which we
swim, instead of just moving right along.
The book is an impressive synthesis of the current thinking on and around Google -- much of it
applicable to any contemporary dot-com with runaway success. One of Siva's objections to the "googlization"
of the online knowledge space is that while institutions like libraries and universities typically
plan to be around in a hundred years, companies like Google do not necessarily have, or plan for,
such staying power. This is a nicely contestable sentiment -- that, as a corporate entity, Google
is inherently shorter lived then, say, the University of Virginia, or at least its values are less
consistent over time. It sets up a deeper question of what mix of institutions ought to contribute
to the world and serve as gateways to our accumulated knowledge, and with what ethos (ethoi?).
In the last section, Siva proposes a Human Knowledge Project. The name is derived from the Human
Genome Project. It is intended to be a "global information ecosystem," essentially a Google by and
for the public sphere: "The Human Knowledge Project should [be] open, public, global, multilingual,
and focused. It should be sensitive to the particular needs of communities of potential knowledge
users around the world, yet it should be committed to building a global system that can erase the
gaps in knowledge that current exist between a child growing up in a poor village in South Africa
and another growing up in a wealthy city in Canada." The Human Knowledge Project also builds on the
criticism that Google's rise to such extreme prominence is due in part to the failure of the public
sector; thus Siva's proposal is a straight argument for a transfer of power back from private to public
hands.
A major difference between this idealized project and the internet (or Google) as it exists now
is its central focus on existing libraries as knowledge hubs. One of Siva's central concerns about
Google, which emerges in the sections on Google Books and Google Scholar, is its pre-emption of librarians
as organizers of knowledge. In his other work -- see The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between
Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System -- Siva has sought to articulate
a central role for librarians that some in the information studies community have yet to grasp. The
Googlization of Everything is in some ways a sequel: a welcome contribution to our debates over the
future of access to knowledge, one blending intimate knowledge of what librarians (and their digital
corporate counterparts) actually do with a strong sense of what differences between them matter --
why the library remains of crucial importance as a mediating institution in a society awash in information.
Google's goal, Thompson
said, isn't really to send people from its site to other places. In reality, Google seems to
have a nefarious plan to keep everyone on its own site:
Google wants to be the home page or wants to be the front page, and Marissa unintentionally
encourages promiscuity. It's about digital, the whole Google model is based on digital disloyalty.
It's about disloyalty to creators.
Google has gone far beyond search: it's offering up everything from email to video (via YouTube);
driving directions to online shopping; book browsing to social networking, and much, much more.
While Google's expansion has made our lives easier, it has also sparked no shortage of privacy concerns
and complaints. Ten nations recently teamed up to demand Google
improve its privacy protections; a member of the FTC
ripped into Google, saying it needed to "step up" its privacy safeguards; and Microsoft
produced an ad knocking Google's browser for "stealing" user privacy.
If all this criticism has got you concerned, here are some tips for how you can avoid Google--and
come close to eliminating it from your online life.
A Digital Canary Sings Out Against The Dangers of Internet Monopolies, February 20,
2013
If we knew better, we'd all be suspicious, if not fearful of unregulated, concentrated power. In
commerce and business theory, when just a few companies come to dominate a given field -- energy,
media, air transportation, you name it -- it's called an oligopoly. We should always be on high alert
when governments allow such circumstances to come about, let alone thrive. In Robert W. McChesney's
"Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning The Internet Against Democracy", the author ably, and
eloquently, dissects all the disturbing history about how the internet, and the digital powers that
be (read oligopoly), are undermining the free, frequent and varied expression we think our democracy
should celebrate and protect.
Like the proverbial canary in a mineshaft, McChesney's latest book analyzes and underlines all the
dangers, now and into the future, when oligopolistic forces threaten, via technology and sustained
lobbying, the basic tenets and rights of our democracy, not to mention offering a poor example to
far less scrupulous foreign governments bent on 24-7-365 digital control.
Digital Disconnect by Robert W. McChesney: MUST READ, November 17, 2013
I don't often highlight passage after passage in any of my Kindle books – and I rarely buy one after
reading most of a print copy – but I bought Robert W. McChesney's Digital Disconnect after reading
most of it, and my copied highlights in 11 point are 21 pages long.
Why? Because I've been making
one or another form of McChesney's argument – which is also Michael Moore's and Chris Hayes' argument
and that of numerous others – all of my adult life – except I never focused on digital technology,
my arguments are less polite, and I go farther left in my conclusions. I wouldn't spend time assuring
readers/listeners that I only want to reform capitalism and protect those things, such as education
and journalism, which exist for the public good. I'm a socialist, strongly in favor of emulating Denmark's
"lopping off the top." Like Moore, I would replace capitalism with democracy.
I certainly agree that capitalism undermines democracy, that capitalism in the U.S. and internationally
is now monopolistic corporatism, that the U.S. economy is built to sustain the institutions and people
at the top, and that the internet and digital technologies can be potent weapons in the hands of either
the 1% or the rest of us. I'm probably less optimistic about the future than McChesney, even though
he concludes:
Left on their current course and driven by the needs of capital, digital technologies can be deployed
in ways that are extraordinarily inimical to freedom, democracy, and anything remotely connected to
the good life. Therefore battles over the Internet are of central importance for all those seeking
to build a better society. When the dust clears on this critical juncture, if our societies have not
been fundamentally transformed for the better, if democracy has not triumphed over capital, the digital
revolution may prove to have been a revolution in name only, an ironic, tragic reminder of the growing
gap between the potential and the reality of human society. (Kindle Locations 4936-4941).
Throughout the book, McChesney emphasizes the need to resist both the "ritualized chant to the
genius of the free market" and the idea that "the internet will necessarily lead to democratic political
revolutions worldwide."
Acknowledging that publicness does threaten "institutions whose power is invested in the control
of information and audience," McChesney cites studies which show that "garbage in, garbage out" remains
true. The internet promotes ignorance as much as knowledge; creates a false sense of community and
increased loneliness and unhappiness; "routinely generates bogus information, violates people's privacy
and civil rights, and facilitates various forms of harassment."
Internet searching has become less a tool for discovery and more a way to be locked in a "bubble"
which prevents discovery and innovation. Using the internet/digital devices may be decreasing our
linear thought process so that we cannot think deeply or creatively, and corroding our ability to
remember, which is dangerous because "the art of remembering is the art of thinking." As Arianna Huffington
wrote, "All these new social tools can help us bear witness more powerfully or they can help us be
distracted more obsessively."
To combat the "ritualized chant to the genius of the free market," McChesney begins by describing
the development of capitalism in terms of society's economic evolution from hunter gatherer, to agricultural
society, to mercantile society, to industrial society and the concomitant increase in surplus, which
became not just the amount produced above that needed for survival, but capital to invest in order
to generate more capital: profit. This makes surplus something not to be consumed, even by the wealthy.
"How the surplus is generated and distributed becomes the portfolio of political economy," he writes.
Capitalism thus tends to increase income inequality exponentially. It also "tends to evolve into
monopolistic competition, or oligopoly" and "as a rule the digital era has seen a continued, arguably
accelerating, rate of monopoly in the economy." Capitalism also tends toward an "endless drive to
develop new technologies," whether or not that is rational for the system as a whole, and much of
this technology is funded by and for the military and the growing military-digital complex. As McChesney
notes, "in addition to inequality, founders saw militarism as contributor to inequality and enemy
of democracy.….. 'No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.'-Madison."
McChesney also discusses the roles of advertising and public relations in expanding contemporary
capitalism's monopolistic, oligarchical power over and through the media and into the government,
at the expense of both privacy and a free press which supports robust investigative journalism. Tax
structures and numerous rules and regulations increase and cement corporate power. Copyright law and
patent law are especially insidious; instead of protecting the rights of creators for a reasonable
amount of time, they protect the ability of corporations to keep information locked away or used only
for corporate profit. And the internet giants are now among the most powerful of all corporations.
McChesney concludes that "efforts to reform or replace capitalism but leave the Internet giants
riding high will not reform or replace really existing capitalism" because "the Internet giants are
not a progressive force. Their massive profits are the result of monopoly privileges, network effects,
commercialism, exploited labor, and a number of government policies and subsidies." He proposes a
long list of policies and reforms (Kindle Locations 4609-4622) that "would put the Internet and our
society on a very different trajectory" but says that "none of these reforms has a chance" because
of political corruption. It's going to take a political movement, he says, designed to replace capitalism.
If your daily routine took you from one homegrown organic garden to another, bypassing vast fields
choked with pesticides, you might feel pretty good about the current state of agriculture.
If your daily routine takes you from one noncommercial progressive website to another, you might
feel pretty good about the current state of the Internet.
But while mass media have supplied endless raptures about a digital revolution, corporate power
has seized the Internet -- and the anti-democratic grip is tightening every day.
"Most assessments of the Internet fail to ground it in political economy; they fail to understand
the importance of capitalism in shaping and, for lack of a better term, domesticating the Internet,"
says Robert W. McChesney in his illuminating new book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning
the Internet Against Democracy.
Plenty of commentators loudly celebrate the Internet. Some are vocal skeptics. "Both camps, with
a few exceptions, have a single, deep, and often fatal flaw that severely compromises the value of
their work," McChesney writes. "That flaw, simply put, is ignorance about really existing capitalism
and an underappreciation of how capitalism dominates social life. . . . Both camps miss the way capitalism
defines our times and sets the terms for understanding not only the Internet, but most everything
else of a social nature, including politics, in our society."
And he adds: "The profit motive, commercialism, public relations, marketing, and advertising --
all defining features of contemporary corporate capitalism -- are foundational to any assessment of
how the Internet has developed and is likely to develop."
Concerns about the online world often fixate on cutting-edge digital tech. But, as McChesney points
out, "the criticism of out-of-control technology is in large part a critique of out-of-control commercialism.
The loneliness, alienation, and unhappiness sometimes ascribed to the Internet are also associated
with a marketplace gone wild."
Discourse about the Internet often proceeds as if digital technology has some kind of mind or will
of its own. It does not.
For the most part, what has gone terribly wrong in digital realms is not about the technology.
I often think of what Herbert Marcuse wrote in his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man: "The traditional
notion of the `neutrality' of technology can no longer be maintained. Technology as such cannot be
isolated from the use to which it is put; the technological society is a system of domination which
operates already in the concept and construction of techniques."
Marcuse saw the technological as fully enmeshed with the political in advanced industrial society,
"the latest stage in the realization of a specific historical project -- namely, the experience, transformation,
and organization of nature as the mere stuff of domination." He warned that the system's productivity
and growth potential contained "technical progress within the framework of domination."
Fifty years later, McChesney's book points out: "The Internet and the broader digital revolution
are not inexorably determined by technology; they are shaped by how society elects to develop them.
. . . In really existing capitalism, the kind Americans actually experience, wealthy individuals and
large corporations have immense political power that undermines the principles of democracy. Nowhere
is this truer than in communication policy making."
Huge corporations are now running roughshod over the Internet. At the illusion-shattering core
of Digital Disconnect are a pair of chapters on what corporate power has already done to the Internet
-- the relentless commercialism that stalks every human online, gathering massive amounts of information
to target people with ads; the decimation of privacy; the data mining and surveillance; the direct
cooperation of Internet service providers, search engine companies, telecomm firms and other money-driven
behemoths with the U.S. military and "national security" state; the ruthless insatiable drive, led
by Apple, Google, Microsoft and other digital giants, to maximize profits.
In his new book, McChesney cogently lays out grim Internet realities. (Full disclosure: he's on
the board of directors of an organization I founded, the Institute for Public Accuracy.) Compared
to Digital Disconnect, the standard media critiques of the Internet are fairy tales.
Wouldn't it be nice if one day, told that Google's mission is to "organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful," we would finally read between the lines and discover
its true meaning: "to monetize all of the world's information and make it universally inaccessible and
profitable"?
If Ronald Reagan was the first Teflon President, then Silicon Valley is the first Teflon Industry:
no matter how much dirt one throws at it, nothing seems to stick. While "Big Pharma," "Big Food" and
"Big Oil" are derogatory terms used to describe the greediness that reigns supreme in those industries,
this is not the case with "Big Data." This innocent term is never used to refer to the shared agendas
of technology companies. What shared agendas? Aren't these guys simply improving the world, one line
of code at a time?
Something odd is going on here. While we understand that the interests of pharmaceutical, food and
oil companies naturally diverge from our own, we rarely approach Silicon Valley with the requisite
suspicion. Instead, we continue to treat data as if it were a special, magical commodity that could
single-handedly defend itself against any evil genius who dares to exploit it.
Earlier this year, a tiny scratch appeared on the rhetorical Teflon of Silicon Valley. The Snowden
affair helped – but so did other events. The world seems to have finally realized that "disruption"
– the favorite word of the digital elites –describes a rather ugly, painful phenomenon. ...
...Wouldn't it be nice if one day, told that Google's mission is to "organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful," we would finally read between the lines and discover
its true meaning: "to monetize all of the world's information and make it universally inaccessible
and profitable"? With this act of subversive interpretation, we might eventually hit upon the greatest
emancipatory insight of all: Letting Google organize all of the world's information makes as much
sense as letting Halliburton organize all of the world's oil.
The reason why the digital debate feels so empty and toothless is simple: framed as a debate over
"the digital" rather than "the political" and "the economic," it's conducted on terms that are already
beneficial to technology companies. Unbeknownst to most of us, the seemingly exceptional nature of
commodities in question – from "information" to "networks" to "the Internet" – is coded into our language.
It's this hidden exceptionalism that allows Silicon Valley to dismiss its critics as Luddites who,
by opposing "technology," "information" or "the Internet"-- they don't do plurals in Silicon Valley,
for the nuance risks overwhelming their brains – must also be opposed to "progress."
How do you spot "the digital debate"? Look for arguments that appeal to the essences of things –
of technology, information, knowledge and, of course, the Internet itself. Thus, whenever you hear
someone say "this law is bad because it will break the Internet" or "this new gadget is good because
that's what technology wants," you know that you have left the realm of the political – where arguments
are usually framed around the common good – and have entered the realm of bad metaphysics. In that
realm, what you are being asked to defend is the well-being of phantom digital gods that function as
convenient stand-ins for corporate interests. Why does anything that might "break the Internet" also
risk breaking Google? This can't be a coincidence, can it ?
Perhaps, we should ditch the technology/progress dialectic altogether. "Is it O.K. to be a Luddite?"
ran the title of a fabulous 1984 essay by Thomas Pynchon – a question that he answered, by and large,
in the affirmative. This question feels outdated today. "Is it okay not to be a Luddite but still hate
Silicon Valley?" is a much better question, for the real enemy is not technology but the present political
and economic regime – a wild combination of the military-industrial complex and the out-of-control
banking and advertising – that deploys latest technologies to achieve its ugly (even if lucrative and
occasionally pleasant) ends. Silicon Valley represents the most visible, the most discussed, and the
most naive part of this assemblage. In short, it's okay to hate Silicon Valley – we just need to do
it for the right reasons. Below are three of them – but this is hardly an exhaustive list.
The
rhetoric is as lofty as it is revolutionary
Reason number one: Silicon Valley firms are building what I call "invisible barbed wire" around
our lives. We are promised more freedom, more openness, more mobility; we are told we can roam
wherever and whenever we want. But the kind of emancipation that we actually get is fake emancipation;
it's the emancipation of a just-released criminal wearing an ankle bracelet.
Yes, a self-driving car could make our commute less dreadful. But a self-driving car operated by
Google would not just be a self-driving car: it would be a shrine to surveillance – on wheels! It would
track everywhere we go. It might even prevent us from going to certain places if we our mood – measured
through facial expression analysis – suggests that we are too angry or tired or emotional. Yes, there
are exceptions – at times, GPS does feel liberating – but the trend is clear: every new Google sensor
in that car would introduce a new lever of control. That lever doesn't even have to be exercised to
produce changes in our behavior – our knowledge of its presence will suffice.
Or take MOOCs. They would undoubtedly produce many shifts in power relations. We know of all the
visible, positive shifts: students getting more, cheaper opportunities to learn; kids in Africa finally
taking best courses on offer in America, and so on. But what about the invisible shifts? Take Coursera,
a company that was started by a senior Google engineer and that has quickly become one of the leaders
in the field. It now uses biometrics -- facial recognition and typing speed analysis – to verify student
identity. (This comes in handy when they issue diplomas!) How did we go from universities with open-door
policies to universities that check their students with biometrics? As Gilles Deleuze put in a 1990
conversation with Tony Negri, "compared with the approaching forms of ceaseless control in open sites,
we may come to see the harshest confinement as part of a wonderful happy past." This connection between
the seeming openness of our technological infrastructures and the intensifying degree of control remains
poorly understood
... ... ...
The data-centric model of Silicon Valley capitalism seeks to convert every aspect of our everyday
existence – what used to be our only respite from the vagaries of work and the anxieties of the marketplace
– into a productive asset. This is done not just by blurring the distinction between work and non-work
but also by making us tacitly accept the idea that our reputation is a work-in-progress – something
that we could and should be honing 24/7. Therefore, everything is turned into a productive asset:
our relationships, our family life, our vacations, our sleep (you are now invited to "hack" it so that
you can get most of your sleep in the shortest amount of time).
The rhetoric attached to such "breakthroughs" is as lofty as it is revolutionary, especially when
mixed with subjects like "the sharing economy." „This is the first stage of something more profound,
which is the ability of people to structure their lives around doing multiple sharing economy activities
as a choice in lieu of a 9-to-5, five-day-a-week job," said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York
University and a big fan of "the sharing economy," in a recent interview. „This is technology-driven
progress. This is what it's all about," he added. Oh yes, "progress" has never felt so good: who doesn't
like working 24-7 instead of 9-5?
When privacy is becoming expensive
Reason number two: Silicon Valley has destroyed our ability to imagine other models for running
and organizing our communication infrastructure. Forget about models that aren't based on advertising
and that do not contribute to the centralization of data on private servers located in America.
To suggest that we need to look into other – perhaps, even publicly-provided alternatives –is to risk
being accused of wanting to "break the Internet." We have succumbed to what the Brazilian social theorist
Roberto Unger calls "the dictatorship of no alternatives": we are asked to accept that Gmail is the
best and only possible way to do email, and that Facebook is the best and only possible way to do social
networking.
But consider just how weird our current arrangement is. Imagine I told you that the post office
could run on a different, innovation-friendly business model. Forget stamps. They cost money – and
why pay money when there's a way to send letters for free? Just think about the world-changing potential:
the poor kids in Africa can finally reach you with their pleas for more laptops! So, instead of stamps,
we would switch to an advertising-backed system: we'd open every letter that you send, scan its contents,
insert a relevant ad, seal it, and then forward it to the recipient.
Sounds crazy? It does. But this is how we have chosen to run our email. In the wake of
the NSA scandal and the debacle that is Healthcare.gov, trust in public institutions runs so low that
any alternative arrangement – especially the one that would give public institutions a greater role
– seems unthinkable. But this is only part of the problem. What would happen when some of our long
cherished and privately-run digital infrastructure begins to crumble, as companies evolve and change
their business models?
Five years ago, one could still publish silly little books with titles like "What Would Google Do?"
on the assumption that the company had a coherent and mostly benevolent philosophy, eager to subsidize
unprofitable services just because it could. After Google shut down Google Reader and many other popular
services, this benevolence can no longer be taken for granted. In the next two-three years, there would
come a day when Google would announce that it's shutting down Google Scholar – a free but completely
unprofitable service – that abets millions of academics worldwide. Why aren't we preparing for this
eventuality by building a robust publicly-run infrastructure? Doesn't it sound ridiculous that Europe
can produce a project like CERN but seems incapable of producing an online service to keep track of
papers written about CERN? Could it be because Silicon Valley has convinced us that they are in the
magic industry?
Now that our communication networks are in the hands of the private sector, we should avoid
making the same mistake with privacy. We shouldn't reduce this complex problem to market-based
solutions. Alas, thanks to Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial zeal, privatization is already creeping
in. Privacy is becoming a commodity. How does one get privacy these days? Just ask any hacker: only
by studying how the right tools work. Privacy is no longer something to be taken for granted or
enjoyed for free: you have to expend some resources to master the tools. Those resources could
be money, patience, attention – you might even hire a consultant to do all this for you – but the point
is that privacy is becoming expensive.
And what of those who can't afford tools and consultants? How do their lives change? When the founder
of a prominent lending start-up – the former CIO of Google, no less – proclaims that "all data is credit
data, we just don't know how to use it yet" I can't help but fear the worst. If "all data is credit
data" and poor people cannot afford privacy, they are in for some dark times. How can they not
be anxious when their every move, their every click, their every phone call could be analyzed to predict
if they deserve credit and at what rates? If the burden of debt wasn't agonizing enough, now we'll
have to live with the fact that, for the poor people, anxiety begins well before they get the actual
loan. Once again, one doesn't have to hate or fear technology to worry about the future of equality,
mobility and the quality of life. The "digital debate," with its inevitable detours into cultural pessimism,
simply has no intellectual resources to tackle these issues.
Where are the apps to fight poverty or racial discrimination?
...The trouble with Silicon Valley is not just that it enables the NSA –it also encourages,
even emboldens them. It inspires the NSA to keep searching for connections in a world of meaningless
links, to record every click, to ensure that no interaction goes unnoticed, undocumented and unanalyzed.
Like Silicon Valley, NSA assumes that everything is interconnected: if we can't yet link two pieces
of data, it's because we haven't looked deep enough – or we need a third piece of data, to be collected
in the future, to make sense of it all.
There's something delusional about this practice – and I don't use "delusional" metaphorically.
For the Italian philosopher Remo Bodei, delusion does not stem from too little psychic activity, as
some psychoanalytic theories would have it, but, rather, from too much of it. Delirium, he
notes, is "the incapacity to filter an enormous quantity of data." While a sane, rational
person "has learned that ignorance is vaster than knowledge and that one must resist the temptation
to find more coherence than can currently be achieved," the man suffering from delusion cannot stop
finding coherence among inherently incoherent phenomena. He generalizes too much, which results in
what Bodei calls "hyper-inclusion."
"Hyper-inclusion" is exactly what plagues America's military-industrial complex today. And they
don't even hide this: thus, Gus Hunt, the chief technology officer of the CIA, confesses that "since
you can't connect dots you don't have …we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it
forever." Such hyper-inclusion, according to Bodei, is the prerogative of the deluded. For them,
he writes, "the accidental, which most certainly exists in the external world, has no right of citizenship
in the psychic one, where it is 'curved' to a certain explanation." For example, "a madman might find
it significant that three people in a larger group are wearing a red tie, and might believe that this
implies some form of persecution." Likewise, the delirious person believes that "the concept of St.
Joseph includes not only the individual person but also a wooden table since St. Joseph was a carpenter."
Well, it might be "delusion' for Bodei but as far as Silicon Valley and Washington are concerned, we
are talking bout "the semantic Web" and "Big Data"!
Silicon Valley doesn't care that some of these connections are spurious. When Google or Facebook
mess up and show us an irrelevant ad based on their misconceived view of who we are, it results in
minor discomfort– and little else. When NSA or CIA mess up, it results in a loud drone strike (if you
are lucky, you might qualify for an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to Guantanamo).
The other problem with Silicon Valley's epistemology is that its view of the world is heavily distorted
by its business model. Silicon Valley has two responses to any problem: it can produce more "computation"
(or code) or it can process more "information" (or data). Most likely, it will be a combination of
the two, giving us yet another app to track calories, weather and traffic. Such small successes allow
Silicon Valley to redefine "progress" as something that naturally follows from their business plans.
But while "more computation" or "more information" could be lucrative private responses to some
problems, it doesn't follow that they are also most effective responses to the unwieldy, messy public
problems have deep institutional and structural causes.
... ... ...
Sociologists have coined a term for this phenomenon: "problem closure." To use one recent definition,
it refers to "the situation when a specific definition of a problem is used to frame subsequent study
of the problem's causes and consequences in ways that preclude alternative conceptualizations of the
problem." Once the causes and consequences have been narrowly defined, it's no wonder that particular
solutions get most attention. This is where we are today: inspired by Silicon Valley, policy-makers
are beginning to redefine problems as essentially stemming from incomplete information while envisioning
solutions that only do one thing: deliver more information through apps. But where are the apps to
fight poverty or racial discrimination? We are building apps to fix the problems that our apps
can fix – instead of tackling problems that actually need fixing.
In 2010-2012 I was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New America
Foundation. In 2009-2010 I was a fellow at Georgetown University and in 2008-2009 I was a fellow at
the Open Society Foundations (where I also sat on the board of the Information Program between 2008
and 2012). Between 2006 and 2008 I was Director of New Media at Transitions Online.... Some of my
journalism, essays and reviews are
here.
Flashback Much hilarity has greeted Eric Schmidt's deeply sincere
"outrage" at his "discovery" that the NSA was spying on Google. For example, Vanity Fairpointed Mr Schmidt to some helpful Google searches.
But the NSA is merely treading in some well-worn footsteps – some of which were made by Google itself.
Let us refresh your memory of one of the most prescient and chilling pieces of prediction in the last
decade. For all this was forecast here at The Register in early 2004 – nine years ago.
In early 2004, Google launched Gmail. Gmail performed an automated interception of your email, and
– having scanned the contents and guessed at its meaning – ran contextual advertising alongside it.
Former security advisor Mark Rasch, an attorney who had worked in the Department of Justice's cyberfraud
department during the Clinton administration, and was writing for Security Focus, raised a very
interesting problem. If Google could search through and read your email without explicit legal authorisation,
then surely the security agencies could do the same.
Rasch argued that Google had redefined the words "read" ("learn the meaning") and "search", which
protect citizens, when it unveiled its new contextual ads service. It had removed explicit human agency
from the picture. An automated search wasn't really a search, and its computers weren't really "reading".
"This is a dangerous legal precedent which both law enforcement and intelligence agencies will undoubtedly
seize upon and extend, to the detriment of our privacy," forecast Rasch,
here, in
June 2004.
"Google will likely argue that its computers are not 'people' and therefore the company does not
'learn the meaning' of the communication. That's where we need to be careful. We should nip this nonsensical
argument in the bud before it's taken too far, and the federal government follows."
Remarkably, Rasch even suggested where the security services might most effectively put this into
practice.
"Imagine if the government were to put an Echelon-style content filter on routers and ISPs, where
it examines billions of communications and 'flags' only a small fraction (based upon, say, indicia
of terrorist activity). Even if the filters are perfect and point the finger only completely guilty
people, this activity still invades the privacy rights of the billions of innocent individuals whose
communications pass the filter," he wrote. "Simply put, if a computer programmed by people learns the
contents of a communication, and takes action based on what it learns, it invades privacy."
But very few people wanted to know. Examining the ethics of internet giants is apparently vulgar.
Free email, free cloud services, and bringing freedom to oppressed regimes - who wants to look a gift
horse in the mouth? Through a network of think-tanks and "internet freedom" groups – it's a substantial
donor to Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others – Google even maintained
the illusion that it was on your side.
Yet after pioneering an ethical loophole in the public imagination that government agencies jumped
through, it spent the following decade
lobbying furiously
to weaken citizens' property rights. It's extraordinary what a small amount of money can buy.
Pundits and punters and politicians love to hear how Google is creating clever machines - but they
seem loathe to accept that there's a Wizard behind the curtain, or that said Wizard may have a ruthless
focus on its own self-interest.
"It's just bad public policy ... and perhaps illegal," fretted Schmidt to the WSJ. "There
clearly are cases where evil people exist, but you don't have to violate the privacy of every single
citizen of America to find them."
It's too late, Eric. Google not only made that bed, it set up the bed store
I have never been very fond of Google's collection and retention of this-and-that from it's
users.
Yes, but try avoid it. They collect direct data, meta data and atmospherics, about the only company
in the world that can do this, apparently without any real legal problems (unless the EU does not
give in to the relentless lobbying and US blackmail behind the scenes). When it comes to tax, they
live abroad, as soon as legal problems arise, they're all of a sudden a US company.
"It's just bad public policy ... and perhaps illegal," fretted Schmidt to the WSJ. "There clearly
are cases where evil people exist, but you don't have to violate the privacy of every single citizen
of America to find them."
Bad people are just the pretext. The whole "bad people" thing is way overblown to start with, and
what is happening is so far in excess of what is required that you can assume with a high degree of
certainty that that wasn't the goal at all. It's a pork fest on the back of the tax payer, the tax
payer who is already bleeding from another pork fest gone wrong at Wall Street. The genius lies in
the fact that they managed to export the costs beyond the borders.
I like a company that offers good service and charges a good price for doing so. It is a straightforward
transaction, you know where you stand, it is business as old as civilisation and there is a simply
honesty about what is being transacted. With Google on the other hand, you are the product, you are
the food on the table that Google are putting on sale in the Google restaurant.
I prefer the relationship where I pay upfront for what I use and consume. I think it results in
a healthier relationship where the supplier works hard to ensure they justify their supplies to me,
their customer.
People often talk about Apple without actually checking for themselves. Compare Apple's privacy
policy with Google's. Really read it and think about what each company is committing to. The difference
is night and day. Google use obscure language that is far from upfront and which hides what they really
are reserving the right to do from the unwary. The differences provide an example of the different
forces at play in the two business models.
Looks like interception of traffic is now more complex then it ever was. Multimedia and bittorrent
traffic dominates and it is difficult to analyze it automatically.
"Netflix and Youtube are gaining ground not only on the competition, such as Amazon, but also over
peer-to-peer file sharing. Netflix claims more than 30 million customers and believes it could double
that number in the future. Traffic from Netflix and Youtube amounted to over 50% of Internet traffic
in September. Meanwhile Bittorrent traffic is down slightly (7.4% from 10%) in Internet traffic compared
to last year. Could more people be satisfied with current video offerings or are less people finding
useful things to download via file sharing?"
Powercntrl
Thanks Google (Score:4, Interesting)
I was indifferent about YouTube until it inexplicably linked itself to my Gmail account and now
wants me to create a Google+ page in order to comment on videos. Now, I'd like nothing more to see
it go up in flames, like a Tesla that hit some road debris.
Forever Wondering
Re:Thanks Google
Logout [of gmail] first [possibly clearing some cookies] and you'll have no problem. I have a gmail
account [but I only access it through POP3/IMAP from thunderbird--thus, it's never logged in] and
I don't have the same problem. I did have the same problem one time when I was logged into gmail.
If you'd rather not logout/login on gmail repeatedly, you can create a separate browser profile
[Firefox, at least] for youtube, etc.
Solandri
Re:Thanks Google
If you'd rather not logout/login on gmail repeatedly, you can create a separate browser profile
[Firefox, at least] for youtube, etc.
Or easier yet, use one browser just for logging into gmail, another browser for other stuff.
lgw
Re:Thanks Google (Score:2)
Or easier yet, cut the cord to the gmail mothership! There are other webmail products (I'm
in the midst of switching to outlook.com). Yahoo and MS may have serve ads, but it's vastly less intrusive
than googles omni-present tracking...
Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics
Review. A former CNN producer/correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing
World in the Age of Live Television."
(CNN) -- If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at
the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and terms." It gives you the choice
to "Learn More" or, another option, the one I'm betting most people followed, to "Dismiss."
Who wants to read about what Google plans to do with all that information it has about us?
I, too, clicked "Dismiss." That's because the very idea of considering what Google knows about me
can give me heartburn. And if that happens, I may want to Google "heartburn," and then I'll wonder
if my insurance company will find out that I was searching "heartburn," or, worse, that one day I will
apply for a new insurance company and the side effects of having considered what Google knows will
result in a denial of coverage. But I digress.
When Google announced its new policy, lovingly explaining its reason as "our desire to create one
beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google," the authorities in Europe immediately told
the Internet leviathan to put off its March 1 start date until European Union officials had a chance
to review Google's new quest for beauty and simplicity.
Europeans, it turns out, are much less trusting of invasions of our electronic privacy than Americans
are. Americans have an intense aversion to government intrusion. If the FBI wanted to examine Google
searches, the left and the right would come together -- the ACLU, Tea Party, liberals and libertarians
would raise their fists together to fight for freedom of privacy. The Supreme Court would join in,
as it did in the case of GPS surveillance, and conclude the people have a right to privacy, a right
against any "unreasonable search," as the Constitution says.
But in the case of Google's latest move to consolidate user's data, however, most Americans paid
little attention.
MacKinnon: We're losing control of our digital privacy
If Americans -- or people anywhere -- decided to take up Google's offer to check out its new policy,
they would discover something so troubling, so frightening, really, that it would override the national
tendency to leave companies alone to make money how they see fit. At least in the case of companies
such as Google -- and now Facebook -- which know more about us than even our closest friends.
Here's what Google knows about you, what it stores right there on its servers, waiting for a hacker:
Google gets new privacy policy Google has every e-mail you ever sent or received on Gmail. It has
every search you ever made, the contents of every chat you ever had over Google Talk. It holds a record
of every telephone conversation you had using Google Voice, it knows every Google Alert you've set
up. It has your Google Calendar with all content going back as far as you've used it, including everything
you've done every day since then. It knows your contact list with all the information you may have
included about yourself and the people you know. It has your Picasa pictures, your news page configuration,
indicating what topics you're most interested in. And so on.
If you ever used Google while logged in to your account to search for a person, a symptom, a medical
side effect, a political idea; if you ever gossiped using one of Google's services, all of this is
on Google's servers. And thanks to the magic of Google's algorithms, it is easy to sift through the
information because Google search works like a charm. Google can even track searches on your computer
when you're not logged in for up to six months.
Facebook has even more interesting stuff: your pictures, your comments, your likes, your friends,
your un-friends.
Andrew Keen: We must avoid Facebook's 'creepy' cult of transparency
You've done it, said it, clicked it, searched it, Googled it. You can never undo it or unclick it.
It stays there forever. Unless the people demand that government order a stop to it.
The European Commission has a new privacy proposal known as the "Right to be forgotten." It would
allow Internet users in 27 countries of the European Union to demand Internet companies delete their
personal data.
Google's famous motto is "do no evil." I won't accuse Google of deliberately doing evil. It has
done much to improve our lives. It makes no secret of the fact that it seeks to make profits, which
it richly deserves. I do believe, however, that it deliberately tries to deceive us when it claims
the new privacy policy seeks "to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible."
I followed the instructions and with some difficulty eventually downloaded pages upon pages of personal
material about myself from Google. What I was looking for was a simple, shall we say beautiful, button
telling Google not to save anything I don't explicitly want it to save. But there was no such button.
Google, like Facebook, owns trillions if not quadrillions-plus bits of information. They mine it,
use it to sell ads, algorithm it. But my real fear is not Google. My real fear is that computer technology
has turned into an arms race between good guys and bad guys. Google may see itself as a jaunty white
hat wearer, valiantly protecting all our information. And it may be doing it to the best of its ability.
But hackers are hard at work all the time.
Google and Facebook are profiting from our private information in ways most of us don't quite understand
or would approve. But hackers may do even worse, as we have already seen in many cases around the world.
Hackers have already unlocked and put on the Web reams of credit card information, private documents
and all sorts of personal e-mails. Imagine your e-mails and chats on the Web for anyone to read.
Online hoarding of our private information is not something we can afford to "dismiss." The only
effective way to change the ways of these giant corporations -- and the smaller ones following the
same practices -- is by pushing the government to make those practices illegal. We can start by following
Europe's example.
The obvious, ethical, default setting should affirm that our private information belongs to us and
nobody else -- not to Google, not to Facebook. We should call for laws that require them to change
their terms of service so users have the option of giving or denying permission to them on holding
personal data in storage.
I'm not going to re-post, because the original author posted in a limited circle, but I feel compelled
to anonymously quote this statement, from a friend who is leaving Google+:
"I never wanted to join an 'identity service' as Google likes to call this website. I don't
know what does an identity service mean when it is disguised as a social network. Google is collecting
more and more data about users. Search history, email, contacts, phone, etc.. This is not good for
the internet, which is designed to be a decentralised service. The resistance by Google to allow people
the freedom to select the names they want has also had an effect on my decision. Hate it when people
in position of control refuse to listen. Hopes that G+ will create new exciting innovations in social
networking quickly faded."
How can Google's "Real Name" Policy actually hurt me? I don't care who knows my stuff.
A lot of people can't see how sharing your data online under your real name and being completely
open can hurt you. I have some horrific experiences that illustrate how bad it can be.
These details I'll post below were some of the worst experiences of my life. But if I don't speak
up, this is going to happen again and again to other people. Take this as a warning. It could happen
to you.
If you share personal data under your real name, and Facebook or Google sells this info to advertisers,
it's not hard for health insurance companies to find and discriminate based on the info they find.
Yes, it's illegal. But they do it anyway. Because it's profitable. And there's no one out there who
cares to stop them. The law is essentially structured to protect this sort of discrimination.
Example 1:
When I was with my ex, he had a job with a small company. Small companies pay a lot for insurance;
and when there is a severely sick person covered under their insurance, they pay more. The company
my ex was working for realized their healthcare bills were going up because someone in their company
(or covered by their company's insurance) was sick. But they didn't know who, and they were desperate
to keep costs down. They had to find out who the sick person was who was running up their company healthcare
costs. I suspect that they searched his blog/profile till they found a mention of my severe illness-
because, a week later, they fired him without cause. It was just two weeks after he'd gotten a promotion
and positive performance report. He asked another friend in the company to try and find out why they'd
fired him. The friend reported back that the word in the company was it was because of my illness.
He saw a lawyer immediately afterward, trying to sue for wrongful termination, but the lawyer said
he wouldn't take it. It was too hard to prove in court. The company would simply claim they fired him
for another cause- and what solid proof was there? Only word of mouth. The lawyer wouldn't take the
case, not without thousands of dollars upfront, which he suspected we would never recoup.
Federal law stipulates that you can only win awards of the amount of money you would have earned
if you worked there since the time of your firing, which is usually a small amount. No personal damages
can be awarded. So no one who's been discriminated against because of health care usually sues; it
costs more to sue than you'd gain in the end.
Health insurance companies are out for profit; and unfortunately, if they're able to discriminate
because of info you give them, they can and will. And your hands are tied as a result. How do you expect
to prove you were fired because of your illness instead of what they'll claim? And even if you beat
the odds and win, you won't win enough to pay your court costs.
Example 2:
I have a severe case of systemic lupus. 2 years ago, I had a very bad flare, had a blood clot in
my retina as a result. Suddenly, I was half blind, and in danger of losing the rest of my sight. My
rheumatologist hospitalized me so he could give me high dose chemotherapy to control my immune system.
After two days at the hospital, the health insurer decided I had been hospitalized long enough,
and it was going to cost them too much. They talked to the doctors and tried to get them to discharge
me, but were told they couldn't do that; I was far too sick. I had just received the chemo that morning.
I wasn't able to stand or walk safely. Unable to convince the hospital to discharge me, instead, the
health insurance company tried a different tactic. They called my personal cell phone to tell me that
if I didn't leave the hospital immediately, they would not cover any of my treatment. I'll repeat that:
they called my cell phone to deliver the threat. But I'd never given the insurance company my
cell phone number.
I was so upset by their threat that I agreed to leave the hospital, against doctor's orders. The
threat of bankruptcy outweighed all other concerns for me. If I'd gone bankrupt, I would not be able
to afford my medicines, and I would die.
As I was leaving the hospital, I suddenly collapsed and passed out. They got a crash cart and got
me on it; hooked me up to a heart monitor. My heart rate had dipped so low the doctors feared I'd die.
They rehospitalized me in the cardiac unit. The hospital itself had to call the insurance company and
threaten to sue them on my behalf if they did not stop harassing me.
If that's not enough to illustrate what can happen when companies know your real name and phone
number, I'm not sure what can convince you. I never gave the insurer my cell phone number. It's a mystery
as to how they got it. I suspect they may have gotten off of Facebook, or an online ID search. I removed
my phone number from my Facebook and changed the number so it could never happen again.
To summarize:
Whether you are sick or not, sharing data can hurt you. If you ever get sick, and Google finds they
can make a profit by selling your data, you are in trouble. Worst case scenario, your employer might
fire you for having a disabled child, spouse, or getting sick yourself.
If you think you're healthy and don't have to worry about this, well, anyone of any age can be diagnosed
with cancer. It could hit you tomorrow. And if you mention it on your G+ profile, your gmail account,
your facebook page, Google or Facebook knows.
Google does not have your best interests in mind; they have their company's profits in mind. Facebook
does too. They will sell your data if it is in their best interest. The "real name" policy is driven
by advertising and data selling revenue.
If you're self employed, that's great. Maybe you don't have to worry about this aspect. But the
odds are you know someone or are related to someone who does.
Here are a few good steps to take if you're concerned. Empower yourself. Fight back.
1. Hit the "send feedback" button on Google plus in the lower right corner. Let them know that you're
angry about the Real Names Policy.
The FTC recently investigated Google because of privacy violations with their former social network,
Buzz. It's time they started investigating the real names policy on Plus. These sort of privacy violations
are already illegal in Germany.
4. Contact the government. Call the White House. They have publicly supported using real names online.
The number for the White House is: 202 456 1111. Advocate for the right to use names other than your
legal name and let the government know you want them to step in. You should have the right to protest,
to have free and protected speech on the internet. And not to lose your job as a result, or your health
insurance. I nearly died from what I went through. I hope it never happens to you.
Summary: Google CEO Eric Schmidt continues on his never ending quest to "organize"
ALL of the world's information, including ALL of the world's citizens' personal information.Google
proudly announces today: "partnerships with the states of Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to
make it easier to search for hard-to-find public information on state government websites.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt continues on his never ending quest to "organize" ALL of the world's information,
including ALL of the world's citizens' personal information.
Google proudly announces today: "partnerships with the states of Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia
to make it easier to search for hard-to-find public information on state government websites."
Hard to find no more. Thanks? to Google.
What "hard-to-find" information about the citizens of the states of Arizona, California, Utah and
Virginia will no longer be hard to find at Google.com as well?
Individuals' Social Security numbers, for starters.
According to Google:
These partnerships developed as both Google and officials with the four state governments recognized
that the public is increasingly turning to search engines like Google to access government services,
but that a significant share of the information on state agency websites is not included in its index
of information sources on the web. As a result, many online government services can be difficult for
the public to find.
In January 2007 comments to the Identity Theft Task Force of the Federal Trade Commission, The Electronic
Privacy Information Center (EPIC) stated:
Government and private agencies that collect and store excessive amounts of often unnecessary personal
information in systems that lack adequate privacy and security safeguards. The best long-term approach
to the problem of identity theft is to minimize the collection of personal information and to develop
alternative technologies and organizational practices.
Minimize the collection of personal information by the government? That is NOT search engine music
to Google's ears:
J.L. Needham, who manages Google's public-sector content partnerships, said at least 70% of visitors
to government websites get there by using commercial search engines. But too often, he said, Web searches
do not turn up the information people are looking for simply because government computer systems aren't
programmed in a way that allows commercial search engines to access their databases.
Still, if users can't get the information they're looking for, they blame the search engine, not
the government, Needham lamented. The remedy, which Google has been working on with state technology
officers for roughly six months, is to create virtual roadmaps by which search engines can find the
databases that store public records.
"We have a vested interest in ensuring that the results we provide in every area, including government
services, are high-quality, authoritative and trustworthy," he said (as cited by the Associated Press).
Vested Google interest in the personal records of state residents indeed.
Marc Rotenberg, EPIC executive director though said many public health and financial records shouldn't
necessarily be widely available because they often contain citizens' Social Security numbers.
Among much other personal, private, NO need for Google's spiders to know data.
Whenever you click a link in Google Search, your click is redirected through a secret URL. If the
site you're going to is http://www.cybernetnews.com/, Google will do a secret redirect through
a URL that looks similar to http://www.google.com/url?url=http://www.cybernetnews.com/.
In some cases, you can reveal the secret redirect by right-clicking on a linked search result. If that
doesn't work, your last resort is an
HTTP sniffer.
There are several Firefox add-ons that claim to get rid of Google Search's click tracking.
CustomizeGoogle is one of them. Among
other tweaks, it promises to remove click tracking and disable Google Analytics cookies. If you just
want the anti-tracking feature without the bells and whistles, there's a Greasemonkey script you can
download called Google Tracking
B-Gone. To use Greasemonkey scripts, you need to install the
Greasemonkey add-on
for Firefox. Also, if you use an international version of Google such as google.co.uk, you have to
change the script's URL range from http://*.google.com/* to http://*.google.*/* to ensure
that the script is allowed to operate on your local Google site.
Documents released by Edward Snowden show how the NSA broke into the main communication links connecting
Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, enabling it to collect pretty much everything you've
ever done on the Internet. Assuming you're a "foreigner" (wink, wink!).
By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of
millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it
collects, but it keeps a lot.
In fact, your data ("data" includes both metadata and content, presumably everything you've ever
written, every video and picture you've viewed, every search you've made, for starters) is already
stored away, waiting to be scrutinized at any time by an enterprising young NSA fellow if they should
take an interest in you, for whatever reason. As is the case with most of these Snowden revelations,
the collection of private data is a process already well underway:
According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA's acquisitions directorate sends millions
of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency's Fort
Meade headquarters.
As
USA Today observes, this newly revealed spying "appears to give government snoops access to not
just contact lists and address books – last week's Snowden revelation – but all e-mail and business
documents, including Google docs which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies."
The tool they are using to steal and collect your private data for future use is known as MUSCULAR.
This tool enables them to dispense with the PRISM infiltration, which requires Court approval under
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM,
has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.
The MUSCULAR project appears to be an unusually aggressive use of NSA tradecraft against flagship
American companies. The agency is built for high-tech spying, with a wide range of digital tools,
but it has not been known to use them routinely against U.S. companies.
MUSCULAR is purportedly only in use "overseas," which is of course an immense relief, since nothing
we have seen thus far from the NSA would remotely suggest they'd use such a tool domestically.
Intercepting communications overseas has clear advantages for the NSA, with looser restrictions and
less oversight. NSA documents about the effort refer directly to "full take," "bulk access" and "high
volume" operations on Yahoo and Google networks. Such large-scale collection of Internet content
would be illegal in the United States, but the operations take place overseas, where the NSA is allowed
to presume that anyone using a foreign data link is a foreigner.
No one from the "Directorate"
appears ready to discuss this yet. Coming just one day after the head of the Agency dismissed stories
of sweeping up the phone records of millions of Europeans as
"completely false," that's quite understandable.
White House officials and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the
NSA, declined to confirm, deny or explain why the agency infiltrates Google and Yahoo networks overseas.
One of the more striking documents revealed today is what appears to be a little post-it tab (actually
a slide from an internal NSA presentation, presumably held over coffee and donuts) where some bored
NSA staffer
drew a smiley-face to celebrate the NSA's infiltration of Google's cloud.
In hand-printed letters, the drawing notes that encryption is "added and removed here!" The artist
adds a smiley face, a cheeky celebration of victory over Google security.
None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been
kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. -Johann von Goethe
mimi
My muscles had a spontaneous reaction
to wanting to punch the MUSCULAR Program's initiators, supporters, developers and founding fathers
in the face.
This comes from a foreigner in the US and a foreigner in Germany and an altogether stupid idiot
like me.
Not that I didn't expect that to be the case anyhow. So, how are foreign correspondence news and
images searches via google collected ... we are all darn foreigners who report on American affairs
to them foreigners in Europe.
so that they can Cyberstalk, downloading porn, spying on our allies but can't stop two morons with
"Grannie's" pressure cooker when one of the morons is already in "The system"......
When the same contractors the NSA uses to spy on us are also working for Bank of America, Hunton
& Williams, and the Chamber of Commerce to attack labor unions, independent, progressive journalists,
and any "left-leaning critics" of Wall Street, it's perfectly clear what the real agenda is here.
Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors
(Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor
unions and political organizations. The plans- one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber
of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU,
and a separate proposal to "combat" WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf
of Bank of America - fell apart after reports of their existence were published online.
But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed
cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.
Stwriley
And not intelligent.
I could almost believe in the benevolent oversight of a non-human AI that was designed from the
ground up to "protect and defend". But the NSA's system, even once they figure out all the problems
associated with sifting that much data, isn't an AI or anything like it. It's just a dumb tool and
will likely stay that way for a long time. The real intelligence in action belongs to the NSA staffers
and contractors who are running that tool and making all the decisions, every one of them human to
the core.
And that's what's really scary.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise
before defeat. Sun Tzu The Art of War
snoopydawg
Why the HELL isn't Congress
Bitching about that excessive abuse of funds? M
Hell no, they have to gut SNAP, WIC, and other programs that he the poor. God, has there been a
less useless Congress then the current crop? Both sides.
How many BA contractors are getting insider trading info when they listen to corporstions?
Would Congress please do their fucking jobs?
Holder, SEC?
Passing a law that the Constitution doesn't allow does not negate the Constitution, it negates
the law that was passed. Secret courts can't make up secret laws. SORRY FOR THE TYPOS :)
Selphinea
You think they're not doing their jobs?
They're doing exactly what they were paid to do!
Patriotism is another word for nationalism. Nationalism is another word for bigotry.
snoopydawg
Paid by whom?
When we pay their salary, they are supposed to work for us. I get that most ofbthem are owned by
the corporations. But I want them to do the job we elected them to do.
Passing a law that the Constitution doesn't allow does not negate the Constitution, it negates
the law that was passed. Secret courts can't make up secret laws. SORRY FOR THE TYPOS :)
Selphinea
"We"? Who's "we"?
Oh, the poor. Ha ha, you think you're people, how cute.
Patriotism is another word for nationalism. Nationalism is another word for bigotry.
ewhac
"Safe from Terrorism"
So: The NSA has built for itself the ability to comprehensively monitor pretty much the entire
unencrypted Internet, and probably a fair amount of the encrypted traffic as well.
Meanwhile, malware authors and spammers run free because it's "too difficult" for law enforcement
to go after them. Compromised Windows system remain so because it's "too difficult" to identify the
compromised machines and notify their owners to clean them out.
The economic meltdown of 2008, and the economic meltdown of yet-to-come, can't be investigated
much less prosecuted because it's "too difficult" to obtain the necessary evidence to proceed, even
though there was almost certainly collusion across international boundaries. Over phone lines. Which
are all tapped.
Daniel W. Drezner provides a poor man's version
here with a response from Farrell
here.
stevemb
Another Way The NSA Enables Spammers
If the e-mail infrastructure had strong encryption built into it (as should have been done long
ago, but was prevented by NSA-driven obstructionism), the extra computational load of sending millions
of e-mails would be prohibitive for the typical chicken-boner spamhaus. (Legitimate e-mail lists wouldn't
be much affected; even large ones are typically a couple orders of magnitude smaller than a spam run.)
On the Internet, nobody knows if you're a dog... but everybody knows if you're a jackass.
ewhac
Not the Entire Story
The NSA's influence was certainly part of the equation, but relatively minor at the time in light
of other factors.
One was that there was a strong civil libertarian streak in the people who designed the net and
its protocols. Making the email infrastructure spam-proof would require an authorization infrastructure
("You have permission"), which would require an authentication infrastructure ("And just who are you,
anyway?"). There was widespread sentiment that the authentication component -- traceably proving to
an authority who you were -- would undermine anonymity, which was seen as valuable.
Another problem is that, at the time, RSA held a patent on public key cryptography, and were charging
usurious amounts for licenses. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a public key cryptography package for end
users, had been independently developed and was available, but nobody wanted to incorporate it commercially
because they didn't want to risk a ruinous patent lawsuit from RSA. The only widespread alternative
at the time was 56-bit DES, a symmetric cipher which became trivially crackable in the late 1990's.
As for the increased computational load that strong crypto would require, modern spamming doesn't
use its own resources, as rogue domains are blacklisted fairly quickly. Rather, they steal resources
by distributing the spam through millions of compromised Windows systems.
bluicebank
I want some results from my loss of civil rights!
Damnit.
Damn you, NSA. If you're going to go all 1984 on us, at least have the competence to ferret out
the spammers and catch the occasional bomb thrower.
I swear to our Simulated Universe Overlords, this is incompetence, pure and simple. Fuckers.
Slightly Wobbly
It looks like a roomful of lawyers
During the SCO-IBM trial someone referred to the IBM legal team as the Nazgul. Pretty apt: these
are not people you want coming after you.
IndyCasella
I don't know where the NSA stops and Google
begins or vice versa.
I doubt they're shocked. They knew about this connection before we did. I think they're all playing
ignorant and outraged for the cameras.
Information is the currency of democracy. ~Thomas Jefferson
CIndyCasella
Google is the NSA dressed up as Grandma from the
looks of things here.
Grandma, what big ears you have! The better to record you, my dear.
Oh, Grandma, what big eyes you have! The better to film you with my dear!
Information is the currency of democracy. ~Thomas Jefferson
lalo456987
The Google business...
of "Cloud computing" is one of the major drivers of their revenue going forward.
This is a big f***ing deal to them, and it pretty much throws the business out the window if security
is meaningless because of unwarranted (and I mean that literally) eavesdropping.
It used to be that emails were like postcards, it now seems that all cloud-based computing
will have to be imagined in the same way: everything stored in a "cloud" is subject to interception
and interpretation by the "postmaster" known as the NSA (and others).
Microsoft and SGI have been building containerized data centers for years. SGI even has solar powered
ones.
And it's not really certain what, exactly that thingy is, some people think it will be a Google
Glass store. That would be pretty funny, great publicity stunt.
Thomas Twinnings
I don't quite understand
If the NSA has access to internet traffic though the "front door", with PRISM, why do they
need a "back door" with MUSCULAR? What do they get with one that they do not get with the other?
An illusion can never be destroyed directly... SK.
of releasing documents a few at a time. Give officials an opportunity to explain. When they lie,
provide the damning evidence. Wait for officials to respond to that, and follow up with more damning
evidence.
Even if the government does nothing to cut back surveillance, Snowden's disclosures have altered
the way Americans view their government.
lotlizard
There's always been people who argue that
… states / governments / countries should not be judged by the same moral standards as apply to
individuals.
Basically, the idea seems to boil down to a notion that countries who aren't willing to act like
murderous paranoid psychopaths won't survive, or something.
The Dutch kids' chorus Kinderen voor Kinderen wishes all the world's children freedom from hunger,
ignorance, and war. ♥ ♥ ♥ Forget Neo - The One is Minori Urakawa
Deep Harm
The agency issued a nondenial denial
White House officials and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the
NSA, declined to confirm, deny or explain why the agency infiltrates Google and Yahoo networks overseas,
the Post reported.
http://www.latimes.com/...
That's not a non-denial denial
Sandino
That's a 'no comment'. A non-denial-denial is a denial of something that was not the question:
The DNI denied that the NSA has agents reading American's google searches in real time.
During a single day last year, the NSA's Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail
address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and
22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an
internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the
document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.
Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists
on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.
The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied
intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet's main data routes.
Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has slammed the Obama administration
and the NSA in a way that could recast the debate over IT surveillance. His withering critique moves
the center of the debate and ramps up the pressure to rein in eavesdropping. And no wonder–the extent
of government snooping undermines the trust that customers place in Internet companies, and threatens
GOOG -0.10% business model and that of all U.S.-based cloud providers.
He bristled at reports that the U.S. government allegedly spied on the company's data centers. "It's
really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if
that's true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its
mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK,"
Mr. Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal in an
interview. "The Snowden revelations have assisted us in understanding that it's perfectly possible
that there are more revelations to come."
Mr. Schmidt said Google had registered complaints with the NSA, as well as President Barack Obama
and members of Congress. Separately, Mr. Schmidt said Google is in no hurry to expand in China, given
the extent of censorship there. "China's censorship regime has gotten significantly worse since we
left so something would have to change before we come back," he said.
NSA Chief wrote:
And despite Schmidt's tantrums, the surveillance will continue.
Get used to the Brave New World Order. No one has any expectation of privacy. Just ask the SCOTUS.
Ian Michael Gumby wrote:
"Good morning. Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has slammed the Obama administration
and the NSA in a way that could recast the debate over IT surveillance. His withering critique moves
the center of the debate and ramps up the pressure to rein in eavesdropping. And no wonder–the extent
of government snooping undermines the trust that customers place in Internet companies, and threatens
Google'sGOOG -0.24% business model and that of all U.S.-based cloud providers."
Translation… Schmidt to Obama… Shh! You're shining a flashlight on our business model and when
the shills catch on, we're going to face more legal scrutiny.
K9 email cleint has a very useful encryption add-on which can encrypt down to the actual email
account source itself. I'll be honest, I have it but don't use it but when I use it, it works. There
are paid encrypted and privacy email services (Reagancom and others) but like Kris said earlier, they
often get shut down for not weakening encryption or refusing to hand over data all together. Kris
is right, this has happened to me with the last email service I was using.
For web I use Firefox with DuckDuckGo search (add-on) as default. As far as HTTP vs. SSL and VPN
web service goes- Don't bother, they have all been cracked. Along with Firefox with DDG as default,
I use security add-ons which include: Ghostery in conjunction with Self-Destructing Cookies (Ghostery
for ALL trackers, web beacons, analytics, etc & Self-Destructing Cookies for everything else) when
set up that way they work remarkably well. Your always best off to have your cookie preferences set
to allow NO third party cookies. For flash cookies, unless it is absolutely necessary for the site
I'm on, I usually go to flash player and turn flash cookie function off.
These are the easiest and most common ways your information gets collected then handed over. I'm
a bit of a paranoid freak but only because I been through this first hand. Your concern really
shouldn't be about the NSA but rather the integrity of the providers and services you use. Google
uses an UNBELIEVABLE amount of cookies and trackers for data collecting. Not all services are that
way.....................
Well, it is fine to have that options for encrypting data and these technical stuff. And I in a
way also understand the struggle of authorities and institutions such a NSA. But what fascinates
me most is the feeling of ignorance or lethargy of the most users (which I know, I don´t want to generalize).
In other words, my feeling is that most of the people just don´t care. I don´t mean that everybody
has to be some kind of "paranoid freak" (no offense Amy
), but at least some kind of basic knowledge or interest should be expected...
Furious Tech Giants Fight Back Against NSA Surveillance
It's a million dollar tech headache...caused by the U.S. government.
The New York Times today writes about how companies like Google (GOOG)
are spending millions to beef up encryption of their own internal data. Why? To keep the National Security
Agency (NSA) from hacking "their systems without their knowledge or cooperation." Those first reports
about NSA spying surfaced last June but the fallout continues.
And The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task points out the irony. "This is the government essentially circumventing
whatever agreements they had with these companies and finding a loophole. And you could argue that
they've done these companies a favor by saying you guys are vulnerable here... the folks at Google
have come out publicly and said 'we are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have
gone.'"
And that leads us to the paradox of all this private information collection. Tech companies like
Google, Facebook (FB) and Yahoo
(YHOO) -- our parent company --
are now working harder than ever to protect their data from hackers and the government so
they can make money off that same data to sell personalized ads.
The New York Times details some of the new efforts by big tech:
Google, for instance, changes its security keys, which unlock encrypted digital data so it is
readable, every few weeks. Google, Facebook and Yahoo have said they are increasing the length of
these keys to make them more difficult to crack.
Facebook also said it was adding the encryption method of so-called perfect forward secrecy, which
Google did in 2011. This means that even if someone gets access to a secret key, that person cannot
decrypt past messages and traffic.
"The government blew it," he said. "The government's comment was, 'Oh, don't worry, basically we're
not spying on any Americans.' Right, and it's like, 'Oh, wonderful, yeah, it's like that's really helpful
to companies that are really trying to serve people around the world and really going to inspire confidence
in American Internet companies.' "
The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget points out: "If nothing else, [Edward] Snowden has succeeded in
just completely embarrassing the United States government."
What is clear over time is that while people often intend to do good, the concept of the end justifying
the means can work into any organization. Google is the living example of a firm that seems to have
solidly crossed the line. Its chairman was on Apple's board while Steve Jobs was dying, and while Jobs
was also mentoring Google's founders, they decided to move from search and create products that competed
with Apple. This upset Jobs so much he pledged all of Apple's resources to kill Android. To me, that
is evil. To attack someone who has put you in a position of trust and used his own time to help you
has to be evil. It doesn't matter that Jobs wasn't exactly and angel himself.
But taking kids out of college and destroying them, that is something that just sits in the back
of your head and festers.
Apparently Google
is not alone in this, though many of the other companies outsource these duties to folks in places
like India. Hey, out of sight out of mind, and at least they aren't doing it to Americans, right? Personally
I don't care where it is done; this practice of destroying people should be regulated so that the people
aren't destroyed.
So, do you agree this is evil? And what do you think should be done about it? The job is necessary,
but shouldn't firms be required to assure that the people doing it aren't destroyed?
There's a lot of
handwringing
about Google's
move to present paid listings-oh, heck, let's just call them advertisements-in places
where it used to provide pure, unpaid search results.
It's understandable that people are making a big deal about this.
Google wasn't the
first search engine, but it aimed to be the best. Google cofounders
Larry Page and
Sergey Brin believed
that other search engines' practice of charging companies to be included in search listings was, well,
evil.
That's where the whole "don't be evil" thing came from.
Then again, Page and Brin weren't exactly big fans of advertising at the beginning. (They thought
Google could make more money by licensing search technology to enterprises. Ha!)
Nowadays, Page is in charge as CEO.
Brin, when he had an active executive role as co-president, was Google's moral compass.
"Evil is what Sergey says is evil," then-CEO
Eric Schmidt told
Wired back in
2003, before the company had even gone public.
When Google went public, it warned shareholders very specifically about its aversion to evil. It
specifically highlighted paid shopping listings as an example of something it would not do.
Nowadays, it's getting paid to sell airline tickets and hotel rooms and, yes, products in the space
it used to reserve for unpaid search results.
It might make as much as $250 million a year from its recent changes-pocket change compared to its
$40 billion a year in annual revenues.
Similarly evil: Google's attempt to put results from its Google+ social network in search. That
wasn't evil so much as a waste of space. Google has largely replaced those results with its new "Knowledge
Graph" summaries. But that move wasn't motivated by providing great search results: It was motivated
by wanting to screw over
Facebook and
Twitter.
Evil!
And you know what? It may be
healthy
for Google to get over the whole "don't be evil" thing. It's not like anyone was buying it.
Even Googlers. Especially Googlers.
All the free-speech advocates have decamped to Twitter, where former Googler Dick Costolo now runs
"the free-speech wing of the free-speech party."
The open-sourcerers have joined startups like
Cloudera or HortonWorks.
The get-rich-quick crowd-sorry, people who want to make the world a more open and transparent
place!-left long ago for Facebook.
Google's a nice place to work if you like the free food, predictable hours, and humongous gobs of
data. But it's not like anyone's naive enough to think that joining Google these days is some kind
of statement against evil, are they?
If you believe that, I've got a paid listing for a bridge to sell you.
Google has finally been exposed as the deceitful, two-faced entity it really is, and now it's desperately
trying to spin the revelations of the
NSA' s pervasive spying program to its advantage. The company that loves to portray itself as the
defender of the internet, espousing its
"Don't be Evil" propaganda
whilst
appearing to fight for internet freedoms, has been left scrambling to defend its so-called 'reputation'
as a company worthy of our trust
Hot on the heels of reports from The Guardian and the Washington Post, Google was among the first
of the nine tech firms involved to deny any knowledge of PRISM.
In a carefully worded statement,
it vehemently denied that it had given the government "direct access" to its servers, adding that it
had "never even heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday".
But Google's denials are riddled with holes that have been ripped even further apart by the government's
own admissions. Just hours after Google's statement was issued,
senior intelligence officials and later,
President Obama himself,
admitted that PRISM was genuine. Could it be that the NSA was acting without Google's knowledge?
Highly unlikely, for a closer look at Google's statement shows us that in actual fact, it isn't denying
anything at all. Rather, it looks as though Google is trying to conjure up a far more subtle PR strategy
than simply denying any involvement whatsoever.
Google makes three key points in its statement that
demand closer examination; firstly, that it didn't provide the NSA with "direct access" to its servers,
that there is no "back door" for the NSA, and that user data is only provided to the government "in
accordance with the law".
With regards to "direct access", in the IT world this generally implies that one is given full and
unrestricted access to a company's servers. But in order to run something like PRISM, the NSA wouldn't
actually need "direct access". Instead, some kind of 'indirect access' (such as Google transferring
data to the NSA's servers when requested) would more than likely suffice. Therefore, when Google says
that "direct access" was not provided, it isn't saying that it hasn't participated in the program.
We can apply a similar logic to Google's denial that the NSA has "back door" access to its servers.
When we talk about 'back door' access, generally what we're describing is a way to access a server
that is neither documented, nor known about by the owner of the server. Simply denying that a back
door exists is not the same as denying that it put some kind of system in place through which the NSA
could access its data.
But what kind of system be in place – one that doesn't constitute either direct access or a back
door? Simple. Something like an API – the tool that company's use to give developers limited access
to their servers – would suffice. Now, to be sure, Google has covered its tracks here too,
denying that an API was used, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that it came up with some
other, similar tool that the NSA could use.
As a further insurance policy, Google's statement also notes that it only provides "user data to
governments in accordance with the law." But as outrageous as PRISM is,
it is in all likelihood quite lawful, thanks to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and the Protect
America Act of 2007.
But what about Google's insistence that it had never heard of PRISM? Well, that one's simple enough
– would the NSA actually tell Google what the program is called? Of course not, so its denial is certainly
plausible.
What we can't be certain of is what Google is trying to achieve with its denials. It could be that
it was hoping the government would also try to deny PRISM existed, as Google made its statement before
any officials confirmed the program's existence. If so, it's been left looking rather foolish now.
Alternatively, it may just be trying to come up with a clever way of protesting its innocence – maybe
it will later try to portray itself as a victim, claiming that it never knew how much access the NSA
really had, or which agency would be accessing the data, or what it would be used for.
Certainly, Google isn't the only one trying to spin PRISM's existence to its advantage. Just hours
after the news broke, officials told Reuters how data collected from the program had helped law enforcement
agencies to
apprehend terrorists intent on blowing up the New York City subway. No doubt in the coming days
and weeks we'll hear about other examples of how vital PRISM is to national security.
In a privacy policy shift, Google
announced today that it will begin tracking users universally across all its services-Gmail, Search,
YouTube and more-and sharing data on user activity across all of them. So much for the Google we signed
up for.
The change was announced
in a blog post today, and will go into effect March 1. After that, if you are signed into your
Google Account to use any service at all, the company can use that information on other services as
well. As Google puts it:
Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've
provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we'll treat you as a single
user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.
This has been long coming. Google's privacy policies have been shifting towards sharing data across
services, and away from data compartmentalization for some time. It's been consistently de-anonymizing
you, initially requiring real names with Plus, for example, and then tying your Plus account to your
Gmail account. But this is an entirely new level of sharing. And given all of the negative feedback
that it had with Google+ privacy issues, it's especially troubling that it would take actions that
further erode users' privacy.
What this means for you is that data from the things you search for, the emails you send, the places
you look up on Google Maps, the videos you watch in YouTube, the discussions you have on Google+ will
all be collected in one place. It seems like it will particularly affect Android users, whose real-time
location (if they are Latitude users), Google Wallet data and much more will be up for grabs. And if
you have signed up for Google+, odds are the company even knows your real name, as it still places
hurdles in front of using a pseudonym (although it no longer explicitly requires users to go by their
real names).
All of that data history will now be explicitly cross-referenced. Although it refers to providing
users a better experience (read: more highly tailored results), presumably it is so that Google can
deliver more highly targeted ads. (There has, incidentally, never been a better time to familiarize
yourself with Google's Ad Preferences.)
So why are we calling this evil? Because Google changed the rules that it defined itself. Google
built its reputation, and its multi-billion dollar business, on the promise of its "don't be evil"
philosophy. That's been largely interpreted as meaning that Google will always put its users first,
an interpretation that Google has cultivated and encouraged. Google has built a very lucrative company
on the reputation of user respect. It has made billions of dollars in that effort to get us all under
its feel-good tent. And now it's pulling the stakes out, collapsing it. It gives you a few weeks to
pull your data out, using its data-liberation service, but if you want to use Google services, you
have to agree to these rules.
Google's philosophy speaks directly to making money without doing evil. And it is very explicit
in calling out advertising in the section on "evil." But while it emphasizes that ads should be relevant,
obvious, and "not flashy," what seems to have been forgotten is a respect for its users privacy, and
established practices.
Among its privacy principles, number four notes:
People have different privacy concerns and needs. To best serve the full range of our users, Google
strives to offer them meaningful and fine-grained choices over the use of their personal information.
We believe personal information should not be held hostage and we are committed to building products
that let users export their personal information to other services. We don't sell users' personal information.
This crosses that line. It eliminates that fine-grained control, and means that things you could
do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone
number come March 1st. If you use Google's services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy.
Yet a real concern for various privacy concerns would recognize that I might not want Google associating
two pieces of personal information.
And much worse, it is an explicit reversal of its previous policies. As Google noted in 2009:
Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web
History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search
so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search
results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser.
It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in
users).
You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear on the top
right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how we've customized your results
and also let you turn off this type of customization.
Google Just Made Bing the Best Search Engine
The changes come shortly after Google revamped its search results to include social results it called
Search plus Your World. Although that move has drawn heavy criticism from all over the Web, at least
it gives users the option to not participate.
wonderkrispU -> Mat Honan
So.... Google is going to take information from your online escapades (Chrome, Google Search, Gmail,
G+, etc.) and is going to cross-reference them.
Not sell the information, or distribute it... But just use it to deliver a better user experience?
It doesn't sound all that bad, unless I'm missing something... Am I missing something? 1/24/12 7:04pm
What the heck is happening with Google?? They've put banner ads on the main search page even though
they promised never to do so. They are supposed to provide us with the best search experience possible,
and it looks like they are pretty much looking to kill Expedia and the rest of the travel sites out
there. Pretty soon there won't be anyone out there to channel you deals, or price comparisons, or bookings
options. Just Google. That's spooky.
You can try Flight Search yourself, which has a convenient tab for Hotel Search so, why I would
want to spend anytime going through sites like Hipmunk or Travelocity beats me. It's clean, simple,
and unless you like the n00b feel of those other sites, it serves its function real well.
It's hard to not to feel a little tinge of regret for having given Google so much power because,
frankly, I really don't want one company being such a fierce sentinel at the gates of the Web. Between
Google and Facebook you'd think that there was no other way to break through into the mainstream of
online experiences.
And who gets the most love from these guys: the big brands who have the money to get the visibility.
No wonder Reddit gets so much traffic. At least its anarchic flow of data and links has some merit
in allowing the out of the ordinary and niche to rise to the surface, but even so, it's owned by a
brand name company, too so, how long will it last?
Our web experiences are becoming increasingly more controlled. The joy of random search and time
wasting on the Web has been replaced by targeting and profiling of your movements across sites.
I know, it's only Flight Search, but this is a continuous modification of services that essentially
end up killing the very businesses that Google helped to grow.
You know who else did that? Microsoft. They had Windows and there was an ecosphere of applications
and services around it. Slowly, much slower than Google, Microsoft started to integrate applications
and services into its OS killing off its satellites of adoration. It was a necessity to justify every
Windows upgrade and to improve the user experiences. Why pay for stuff when it was already going to
be in the next version of Windows.
Google's doing kind of, exactly, the same thing. It's just taking stuff that people were doing through
third parties and sucking it in for itself. Anyone who was arbitrating paid for clicks or impressions
is being hurt by Google. Remember price comparison sites like PriceGrabber and Shopzilla? Waste of
time now. Pretty soon, that's what's going to happen to the travel sites, too.
Collating data from suppliers and then just comparing the data in search results is not a value
added proposition anymore. Airbnb, Uber, OpenTable, and even Spotify come to mind as services that
can be easily absorbed by Google's search engine and offered nonchalantly.
If I was a new business trying to break through on the web, I'd be extremely concerned because,
I have very few options to raise my visibility and get noticed. And frankly, this all lends credence
to the notion that Google is reshaping itself for mobile because, frankly, Google's Flight Search is
a damn site easier to access on a mobile device than any app from the other travel sites..
It is somewhat ironic that "Don't be evil" is the corporate mantra of Google and that this was coined
by a Google exec as an unsubtle sideswipe at competitors, many of whom Google felt were exploiting
their users.
I say this is ironic because Google are about to update their Terms of Service. This will result
in users of the Google+ service having their profile name and photo plastered over adverts by the search
giant as unpaid user endorsements.
If making these endorsements opt-out only and not providing even a smidgeon of the massive revenues
Google are bound to be collecting for these endorsements isn't exploitative, I'd like to know what
is.
So how does it work? In layperson speak, if you're a Google+ user and you've liked (or in Google
parlance +1'd), followed, or even commented on a particular product or service, your Google+ connections
could start to see your profile picture and Google+ name on Google adverts for that product or service.
Googles response to criticisms of this is likely to involve its PR team to putting some positive
spin on the situation by stating that Google+ users can opt out.
I'd like to point out that it'd be far more ethical to provide an "opt-in" choice rather than making
each and every google+ user a revenue generating product endorser by default. Additionally Googles
also claim that an endorsement will only ever happen when you +1, comment, share or follow.
But hang on isn't that just weasel speak for doing just about anything on Google+?
Taking that into account then using Google+ could become a lot like tip-toeing through a minefield
as users seek to being linked to avoid unsavoury endorsements.
Worse still, this move represents a new low for a company whose corporate catch-phrase is "don't
be evil".
The spin has already started. According to the Google shared endorsements page "You're in control:
Your content is only shared when you choose, and shared endorsements don't impact who can see your
content or activity". The reality however is that Google+ users are only ever going to be in control
if Google educates them about how to opt-out when an opt-choice in would have been far more ethical.
Then there's the not so small issue of money. If I endorse something and Google are creaming revenues
off my endorsement, why don't I get a share? After all, isn't it my profile, mugshot and name that
is being put out there?
Worryingly, there's also plenty of scope for endorsement related gaffes. Imagine if for instance
you ended up following, sharing, +1ing or even commenting about something you don't actually like,
or even find totally offensive.
Imagine if you followed, shared or even commented about a seemingly legitimate organisation, only
to later find out it was actually a front financed by a neo Nazi movement advocating some pretty horrific
stuff.
Imagine your horror as you found out that all your Google+ connections are now seeing your face
and name associated with this stuff. Sadly this sort of thing is not only theoretically possible, but
also probable.
So how worried should Google users be? Evil is a strong word, and equally important, a relative
term in that there are varying degrees of being evil. In this day and age when governments can snoop
on us with little to no oversight or accountability, worrying about being used as an advertising stooge
by an online service looks a whole lot like very small beer indeed.
So at the end of the day, the million dollar question is this - is Google evil? It is arguable that
they have made some effort to be up front about the looming changes to their terms and conditions,
in that they've said what they will do, and soon they'll actually be doing it. Compared to the governments
of New Zealand and other western democracies ..... that's arguably saint-like given the lack of integrity
shown by our own law makers.
Before the howls of disapproval start and mail bags of hate mail begin to pile up, the good news
is that google have given Google+ users the ability to do something about it.
Simply head to the 'Google shared endorsements page' and un-check the "Based upon my activity, Google
may show my name and profile photo in shared endorsements that appear in ads" then click the blue save
button.
If enough of us do this, Google may hopefully reconsider their actions. Here's hoping they choose
not to be evil because this move really stinks.
As happens every time the search giant does something unseemly, Google's plan to turn its users
into unwitting endorsers has inspired a
new round of jabs at Google's famous slogan "Don't be evil." While Google has
deemphasized the motto over time, it remains prominent in the company's
corporate code
of conduct, and, as a cornerstone of its
2004 Founder's
IPO Letter, the motto has become an inescapable component of the company's legacy.
Famous though the slogan might be, its meaning has never been clear. In
the 2004 IPO letter, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin clarify that Google will be "a company
that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains." But what counts as "good
things," and who constitutes "the world?" The slogan's significance has likely changed over time, but
today it seems clear that we're misunderstanding what "evil" means to the company. For today's Google,
evil isn't tied to malevolence or moral corruption, the customary senses of the term. Rather, it's
better to understand Google's sense of evil as the disruption of its brand of (computational) progress.
Of course, Google doesn't say so in as many words; the company never defines "evil" directly. But
when its executives talk about evil, they leave us clues. In a 2003 Wiredprofile of the
company, Josh McHugh noted that while other large companies maintain lengthy corporate codes of conduct,
Google's entire policy was summarized by just those three words, "Don't be evil." While there's some
disagreement about its origins, Gmail creator Paul Buchheit
reportedly conceived of the slogan, calling it "kind of funny" and "a bit of a jab at a lot of
the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting
the users to some extent."
In rejoinders of Google's dubious fidelity to the motto, most assume that the company was once virtuous
and has either fallen from grace, or that it has been forced to compromise its values for the market.
Even ten years ago, McHugh explained the situation as a side-effect of growth, explaining how difficult
it was for Google to maintain a Tron-style "fight for the users" ideal in an enormously influential
global information company. Others see it as a foil. In his book The Googlization of Everything,
Siva Vaidhyanathan
observes that the "Don't be evil" slogan "distracts us from carefully examining the effects of
Google's presence and activity in our lives." True, but the slogan itself also counts as one such activity.
Understanding what evil means to Google might be central to grasping its role in contemporary culture.
In
an NPR interview earlier this year, former CEO and executive chairman Eric Schmidt justified the
policy with a paradigmatic example:
So what happens is, I'm sitting in this meeting, and we're having this debate about an advertising
product. And one of the engineers pounds his fists on the table and says, that's evil. And then the
whole conversation stops, everyone goes into conniptions, and eventually we stopped the project. So
it did work.
Schmidt admits that he thought it was "the stupidest rule ever" upon his arrival at the company,
"because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something." The contrast between
the holy scripture and the engineer's fist is almost allegorical: in place of a broadly construed set
of sociocultural values, Google relies instead on the edict of the engineer. That Schmidt doesn't bother
describing the purportedly evil project in question only further emphasizes the matter: Whatever the
product did or didn't do is irrelevant; all that matters is that Google passed judgement upon it. The
system worked. But on whose behalf? Buchheit had explained that early Googlers felt that their competitors
were exploiting users, but, exploitation is relative. Even back in the pre-IPO salad days of 2003,
Schmidt explained "Don't be evil" via its founders' whim: "Evil is what Sergey says is evil."
All moral codes are grounded in something: a religious tradition, a philosophical doctrine, a cultural
practice. Google's take on virtue doesn't reject such grounds so much as create a new one: the process
of googlization itself. If anything, Google's motto seems to have largely succeeded at reframing "evil"
to exclude all actions performed by Google.
There is a persistent idea that Internet technology companies embody an innocent populism. That
the rational engineer is an earnest problem-solver, his fists striking tables instead of noses. But
there's something treacherous in believing that virtue and vice can be negotiated in the engineering
of an email client or the creation of a spreadsheet-that evil is just another problem to overcome,
like usability or scalability.
Companies like Google actually embody a particular notion of progress rather than populism,
one that involves advancing their technology solutions as universal ones. Evil is vicious because it
inhibits this progress. If Google has made a contribution to moral philosophy, it amounts to a devout
faith in its own ability to preside over virtue and vice through engineering. The unwitting result:
We've not only outsourced our email hosting and office suite provisioning to Google, but also our information
ethics. Practically speaking, isn't it just easier to let Google manage right and wrong?
We can already find signs of the spread of this lesser-known, engineer's sense of evil
in Wiktionary, a crowdsourced dictionary
run by the group that operates Wikipedia. There, the word "evil" is revealed to have acquired a domain
specific meaning in computing:
evil (computing, programming, slang) undesirable; harmful; bad practice Global variables are evil;
storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much
more flexible way.
Wiktionary's entry is but one specimen, but it is exemplary of Google's seemingly incongruous moral
behavior. Understood in the programmer's sense, "evil" practices are just counter-indicated ones. Things
that might seem reasonable in the moment but which will create headaches down the line. This kind of
evil is internally-focused, selfish even: it's perpetrated against the actor rather than the public.
Insofar as "bad practice" evils have victims, those victims are always members of the community of
its perpetrators. Like the programmer's stock rejoinder
"considered harmful",
a phrase originally used to rejoin uses of GOTO in BASIC, a computational evil is one committed against
engineering custom or convention.
This, perhaps, is the most helpful way to understand what Google means when it vows not to be evil.
As both users of its products and citizens of the world it increasingly influences and alters, we would
be wise to see Google's concern for evil as a pragmatic matter rather than an ethical one. It's a self-referential
pragmatism, too: "Evils" like GOTO are evil insofar as they prevent a program from being effectively
created and maintained, not because they make that program act wickedly. Under this understanding of
evil, the virtuous actor is one who does not hinder future action.
It is a subtly different wickedness than the kind the political theorist Hannah Arendt famously
called "the banality of
evil." For Arendt, evildoers like Adolph Eichmann carry out heinous acts because they accept the
premises of their enterprise without question. Banal evil is an evil of bureaucracy rather than fanaticism
or sociopathy.
Admittedly, there's probably some bureaucratic banality at work in the Googleplex. No large organization
can avoid it. And, contra Arendt, bureaucratic evil can still be individually sociopathic; just think
of the stories we've recently read about NSA agents abusing the access to information granted by the
government's surveillance system to
spy on love interests.
But when you consider Google's bad behavior, the choices that strike many as low are neither banal
evils nor sociopathic ones. They are conducted in plain sight, as official service offerings. They
are presented through magnanimity rather than savagery. When those choices seem underhanded to us,
at odds with the motto "Don't be evil," they do so not because of the policies they entail, such as
using your activity on the web as unauthorized endorsements for paid advertising. Those acts are par
for the course, alas. All companies, particularly public ones, exist to maximize their own benefit.
Google never claimed otherwise; even in 2004 "Don't be evil" mostly clarified that the company wouldn't
sprint to short-term gains.
Rather, our discomfort is an expression of the dissonance between ours and Google's understandings
of evil. Google has managed to pass off the pragmatic pursuit of its own ends as if it were the general
avoidance of wickedness. It has invested those ends with virtue, and it has publicized the fact that
anything good for Google is also good for society. This is a brazen move, and it's no wonder it takes
us by surprise.
The dissonance arises from our failure to understand "evil" as a colloquialism rather than a moral
harm. An evil is just a thing that will cause you trouble later on-an engineering impediment. These
practical evils are also private ones. Google doesn't make immoral choices because moral choices are
just choices made by Google. This conclusion is already anticipated in the 2004 IPO document, which
glosses evil as the failure to do "good things." At least we're used to hearing "good" as an ambiguous
term that can refer to capacity and validity as much as-and more often than-virtue.
Products and infrastructures eventually degrade, but ideas linger. This verbal frame shift might
turn out to be one of Google's lasting legacies. Google Evil, you might call it: evil as counter-pragmatism,
and as an official public policy. As a replacement for a moral compass.
This is what makes the whole matter seem so insidious: It's not that Google has announced its intention
not to be vicious and failed to meet the bar. Nor is Google, Arendt-style, just manning its station,
doing what's expected. No, through its motto Google has effectively redefined evil as a matter
of unserviceability in general, and unserviceability among corporatized information services in particular.
As for virtue, it's a non-issue: Google's acts are by their very nature righteous, a consequence of
Google having done them. The company doesn't need to exercise any moral judgement other than whatever
it will have done. The biggest risk-the greatest evil-lies in failing to engineer an effective implementation
of its own vision. Don't be evil is the Silicon Valley version of Be true to yourself.
It is both tautology and narcissism.
In specific matters like using your name and likeness to surreptitiously improve the company's advertising
services, you can take comfort in the fact that Google has considered the matter carefully and adopted
a solution on your behalf. Google already knows what's best for you more than you know anyway-it's
got all your data to tell it so. And how do you thank Google for this service? By complaining about
it like an ingrate, unable to see the bigger picture, even though a multitude of engineers have struck
fists against tables in Mountain View to deliver desires so intimate that you can't even recognize
them.
As deviant as this logic might seem, perhaps we should thank Google for being so frank about it.
At least now we can ponder this strange new evil, roll it around in our heads rather than just Googling
for its meaning. And after all, Google's logic is no different from that of other technology companies
banging the techo-libertarian drum of freedom and progress through leveraged, privatized Internet services.
The Internet industry is committed only to itself, to the belief that its principles should apply to
everyone. "Don't be evil" is just another way of saying so.
Google's slogan, famously, is "Don't be evil." Cute, right? Except when Google starts, for example,
to intergrate your name and picture into advertisements without permission, and then things get
uncomfortable. After all, that certainly feels creepy, dishonest, and socially harmful-even,
perhaps, a bit evil.
Over at the Atlantic last week, Ian Bogost
asked the important, obvious questions: what the hell does Google mean by evil? And how will Googlers
know when Google has overstepped Google's Google-imposed boundaries?
Silicon Valley is not known for excessive concern about moral dilemmas (Bogost, a writer and video
game designer, lives in the South, where moral angst is
de
rigueur). Still, Google has tried to answer these Big Questions. In a passage that
will be illuminating for the religiously-inclined, Bogost discusses how Google chairman Eric Schmidt
grapples with the problem of evil:
In an NPR interview earlier this year…Schmidt admits that he thought it was "the stupidest rule
ever" upon his arrival at the company, "because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know,
the Bible or something." The contrast between the holy scripture and the engineer's fist is almost
allegorical: in place of a broadly construed set of sociocultural values, Google relies instead on
the edict of the engineer….Even back in the pre-IPO salad days of 2003, Schmidt explained "Don't be
evil" via its founders' whim: "Evil is what Sergey says is evil."
I'm no philosopher, but I'm pretty sure there are books about evil other than the Bible. And I'm
not a right-wing religious pundit, but I'm also pretty sure that Google has finally confirmed the religious
right's worst fears about secularization: that, in the absence of some guiding moral authority, we'll
all slide into a self-imposed set of moral regulations that will gradually draw us into a morass of
oppression and debauchery. Google may not be the Whore of Babylon, but Schmidt isn't exactly inspiring
confidence in its capacities for moral self-policing.
Still, it's worth asking: what could the Bible say about topics such as user privacy? Sure,
the Book of Job might help us understand the relationship between incomprehensibly huge authorities
and the individuals who must engage with them. And Leviticus might remind us that, sometimes, you just
have to ban things. But, with all due respect to Ecclesiastes, digital technology is something
new under the sun. Laws about stealing, and lying, and loving one's neighbor aren't so easy to apply
to issues of global connectedness and digital privacy.
Back in June, writing about the NSA surveillance scandal, Daniel Schultz
pointed out
in Christian Century that:
there has been minimal reaction by religious groups. A quick survey of eight denominations found
that only one-the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-had a statement on government surveillance, dating
from 2006. [A subsequent correction found one more statement, from the United Methodist Church].
Schultz wasn't especially surprised. These are new, slippery issues. But he was concerned, understandably,
by the propsect of religious groups being unequipped to respond, in any substantive way, to an issue
of obvious moral import.
I'm not saying that Google should add some priests to its board and start requiring employees to
read the Sermon on the Mount. Nor am I saying that you need God to be moral. But Bogost is right: the
moral "edict of the [Google] engineer" may not be enough regulation for what is, arguably, the world's
most influential corporation. Google's slogan does a service, in that it reminds us that digital technology
is not neutral-that is has the capacity to become morally charged. To this, let's hope that
Google doesn't add a corollary lesson: that moral self-policing, without something or someone to keep
you accountable, will always become corrupt.
Who is most evil on the internet? If we're to believe the
latest coverage surrounding Facebook, then we'd probably have to say Mark Zuckerberg and associates,
who have decided that graphic video footage of beheadings on the social network are AOK with them,
so long as they come with content warnings. Bet you're missing that wanton youthful abandon of Myspace
now.
Facebook's explanation for allowing executions galore on your timeline seems to be that the site
has morphed over the years from mere social network into noble protector of freedom of information,
no matter how disturbing the content. That's right: it's basically WikiLeaks, but with a constant stream
of updates about what your old school frenemies' babies weigh. Get rid of all those boundary-pushing,
controversial beheadings, and it's a slippery slope to an endlessly banal stream of boring people who
spend hours carefully constructing online facades in order to convince "friends" they don't even know
in real life that they go to better parties than them. Oh wait.
If you think that it's only Facebook fiddling with the parameters of morality in today's cyberworld,
then you might be interested to know that Google is evil too. For those who know Google's motto, "Don't
be evil", and have taken it at face value, this could come as something of a surprise. But
for those of you who, like me, have a Gmail account and feel ethically torn about it but way too lazy
to delete, it might not be such a shocker.
Gmail has been accused of "automatically scanning" the private contents of emails to and from your
e-buddies for a while now, and using the information to tailor the advertisements it places in the
corners of your screen. From 11 November, it will be widening its remit and taking "names, photos and
reviews" from connected sites like
YouTube to use in marketing. In other words, don't be surprised if your face and words start
appearing in the online adverts that presently irritate you on a daily basis.
What all of this essentially means is that by signing up to a service run by Google, you are no
longer just part of the system: you are the system. You are the advertised-to and the advertisement,
the customer and the marketer, the instrument of your own drowning in commercial fodder.
But is that evil? In a recent
Atlantic article titled What is "evil" to Google?, Ian Bogost argued that Google's wrongs were
"evil insofar as they prevent a program from being effectively created and maintained, not because
they make that program run wickedly". The company's position on not being evil essentially means a
commitment to technological progression, not a commitment to morality (Bogost also points out that
Wiktionary has already redefined evil in the case of computing/programming as something that is "undesirable;
harmful; bad practice", far removed from what most of us might understand "evil" to mean.) Perhaps,
then, not evil at all.
But if turning a blind eye is more your kind of evil, then we shouldn't let
accusations levied against Ask.fm this year pass us by. The site, whose audience is mainly teenagers,
was linked with the suicides of a number of users last year after they apparently suffered a campaign
of vicious cyberbullying facilitated by its anonymous questioning set-up. Ask.fm's failure to monitor
and protect its young users was seen at the time as the ultimate online evil: developers had built
a platform that could be easily used for harassment, and then failed to take responsibility for creating
such a platform seriously. It eventually changed its safety policy, but anonymous questions remain,
with a company disclaimer that it "strongly encourages" users to turn the option off.
We saw the same problem with Twitter, where a particular fever pitch of vilification directed at
Caroline Criado-Perez drew attention to a situation that had been going on for a long time. Twitter
eventually bowed to public pressure and introduced a report abuse button for individual tweets in August,
but not before arguing long and hard for its right not to do so based upon the practicalities of sifting
through so much material. It wasn't the most sympathetic argument in the world: our lucrative website
makes it so easy for people to abuse each other that the volume of reported material after the introduction
of a "report abuse" button would make its creation horrendously inconvenient. So why not keep things
the way they are?
Unsurprisingly, it didn't fly. It suffered the consequences of its own tweetstorm.
With friends like these in the cybersphere, it's hard to believe that any of us need enemies. And
with your data now standing as the most valuable asset you have, there is cause to worry about exactly
how evil your email account is versus your networking outlet. You might not see a beheading on
Google+, but your music taste may well be gathered, analysed and sold as you type. You might applaud
Twitter's new position on abuse, but be less enamoured with the idea of someone policing what you write.
Ultimately, the worldwide web is a scary playground populated with a lot of powerful bullies.
The only way to navigate it safely is to scrutinise terms and conditions, monitor your privacy policies
and, if in any doubt, opt out. It's a time-consuming inconvenience they're hoping you won't undergo,
but it's worth it. In other words, it's a necessary evil.
Dunnyboy
October 25, 2013
It's a funny old thing. Up until very recently I had been the archetypal "I've got nothing to hide,
so I don't care if the government reads my emails" kind of guy, but it is really starting to piss
me off now. As a result, over the past couple of weeks I've written three letters to friends - real
letters, fountain pen and paper letters - and I hadn't written a letter for about a decade. From now
on I'm only going to use IM and email for business. Personal stuff is going to go in a letter.
MattVauxhall -> Dunnyboy
Its not that these brands are "Evil" but more that we seem to be in the middle of a giant experiment
where all previous norms of privacy have been thrown away in a rush to a brave new world
We need to put the onus of any damage from this back on the companies...it would fix things up
quite quickly
LesterJones -> Dunnyboy
...and yet if you sent 30 a day and stuffed them full of photos of yourself and your lunch with
accompanying short messages about your success and general happiness people would think your absolutely
insane...
...which is strange considering that is all Facebook does...
permafail
Gmail has been accused of "automatically scanning" the private contents of emails to and from
your e-buddies for a while now, and using the information to tailor the advertisements it places in
the corners of your screen
I don't get adverts on my gmail. Am I doing something wrong, or does it just take installing adblock
to cut them out?
TheTrueGeek permafail
I agree. I don't see any adverts when browsing the web. AdBlock is excellent. It tidies up the
Guardian site nicely too!
I wont stop the content of emails etc. being trawled to generate ads that might appear elsewhere,
and seen by others though.
NB. Ghostery is another plug-in I recommend people use! (to stop/limit your internet movements
being tracked)
Zakelius
I recently closed my facebook account and feel great about it. I do have a gmail account, but
I only use it for instances where I might get spam and would rather not use my personal email address.
So far I'm happy about it but in the long run I'd rather not use any of their products, including
youtube (which is owned by Google) which makes things a bit more difficult.
peopleisstupid Zakelius
I don't have any social media accounts. I use Goggles and Tubes because it's helpful, but haven't
signed up.
Occasionally you'll find yourself the odd one out in a conversation down the pub, or not quite
getting the point of a particular article/story/news item, but it really doesn't make a blind bit
of difference.
This isn't a 'look-how-retro-cool' I am comment, it's just a confirmation that you really don't
need these things to live a normal, happy, engaged life
Toyin
If people have to make a conscious choice to use Facebook or Google is it right to define the services
we subscribe to as evil? Do we not have any role in the decisions we make?
If these businesses offered a life giving or compulsory commodity like water then yes, but they
don't. They offer efficient access to on-line information and social networks. Yes their long term
ambitions are ethically dubious but to call these networks "a necessary evil" is a stretch, they are
more a morally compromised convenience.
James Hudson -> Toyin
Excellent remark, It seems that more and more in our society people are looking to shirk their
personal responsibilities and seek someone else to make the moral decisions for them. If Google or
Facebook make you uncomfortable, don't use them. They'll soon change when the traffic drops.
Toyin -> James Hudson
They'll soon change when the traffic drops.
Exactly. It's important that users remember that the traffic they generate for these companies
through donating their IP for free is utilised to generate advertising revenue. If you can get something
useful out of the deal then great, if not then log off.
dogfondler
Social media moguls are wankers, the spooks are bastards. It's an important distinction.
JohnBroggio dogfondler
Absolutely. And as both FB & G hand over our data to the NSA, GCHQ et al, they both fall a long
way short of "don't be evil" (I can't speak for their other "talents").
Apresmoiledeluge
It's like hating petrol or fast food.
We use them all the time. Petrol is destroying the climate. Fast food is causing obesity. But we
still drive cars and still eat fast food.
I think what we should be doing is looking at battlegrounds. In Facebook and Google the US empire
has already one. They keep tabs on everyone.
But Wikipedia is a battle.
NeverMindTheBollocks
Neither.
Sorry to ruin the fun here of "who can we call evil today?".
Reasonable and informed Guardian readers realise that the world is not as simplistic and black-and-white
(or black-and-blacker) as portrayed here.
EllisWyatt NeverMindTheBollocks
Oh come on, where's the fun in that. If we believed that actually the world was a complex place
of people bumping into each other, acting in a haphazard way and generally being fallible then 90%
of CiF contributions would die up overnight!
Where we be without politicians, tories, immigrants, greens, Osborne, bankers, oil companies, lefties,
labour, tony blair etc for all the troubles in our lives?
PollitoIngles
[Google/Facebook] Pick your playmates carefully in the internet playground
They're the big kids on the block, controlled by the grand-daddy bully of them all. Choice is:
there is no choice.
Tacgnol
Now that Google has decided that I need to 'add an account' to an inescapable front page to be
remembered every time I just want to check my fucking e-mail, I'm going with Google. They've also
linked (my previously deleted Google Plus) account to Youtube and every time I click to disconnect
the two so I can delete Google Plus, it takes me to a page where the disconnect link simply doesn't
exist -- and yes, I've taken it to the Google forums, where people were as baffled as I was.
They've made some awful, intrusive changes lately and as soon as I find a good alternative to Gmail,
I'm jumping ship. (Any recommendations welcome, by the way.)
BawbagMcWimoweh
Who's more evil – Facebook or Google?
There are lots of different search engines that can be used. Google is simply the most well-known.
Facebook exploits people's own sense of vanity and desire to invade other people's privacy.
There is no requirement to plaster your life all over the internet.
It's bad enough when you run a search company in an increasingly social world. It's worse when anti-trust
regulators say you have unfairly and illegally used your dominance in search to promote your own products
over those of competitors. Now Google executives, who like to boast of their company's informal motto,
"Don't Be Evil," also stand accused of being just that - and rightly so. What other interpretation
is possible in light of persistent allegations that the internet titan deliberately engaged in "the
s ?"
Google's history of anti-social social networks and anti-trust trust relations that deceptively
breach online consumer privacy and trust has already begun to threaten its longstanding web hegemony
and its vaunted brand. Now the company's repeatedly defensive and dishonest responses to charges that
its
specially
equipped Street View cars surreptitiously collected private internet communications - including
emails, photographs, passwords, chat messages, and postings on websites and social networks - could
signal a tipping point.
With the phenomenally successful and profitable internet giant being newly scrutinized by consumers,
competitors, regulators and elected officials alike, all concerned about basic issues of privacy, trust
and anti-trust, the question must be raised: Is Google facing an existential threat? With government
regulators nipping at its heels on both sides of the Atlantic, Facebook leading in the race for attention
and prestige, and "social" beginning to replace "search" as a focus of online activity, the company
that revolutionized our means of finding information just a decade ago now finds itself increasingly
under siege and in danger of fading from prominence to become, in essence, the "next Microsoft."
Who gave these new media companies the right to invade our privacy without our permission
or knowledge and then secretly store the data until they can figure out how to profit from it in
the future?
That possibility came into sharper focus recently when fed-up European regulators gave the company
an ultimatum - change your lying ways about your anticompetitive practices in search, online advertising
and smartphone software or face the consequences. Regulators in the United States are poised to follow
suit.
Meanwhile, the secret Street View data collection has already led to inquiries in at least a dozen
countries. Yet Google still refuses to 'fess up and supply an adequate explanation of what it was
up to, why the data was collected and who knew about it. To date, no domestic regulator has even
seen the information that Google gathered from American citizens. Instead, Google chose first to deny
everything, then blamed a programming mistake involving experimental software, claimed that no use
of the illicit data in Google products was foreseen, and said that a single "rogue" programmer was
responsible for the whole imbroglio. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined instead
that the data collection was no accident, that supervisors knew all about it and that Google in fact
"intended to collect, store and review" the data "for possible use in other Google products," and fined
Google for obstructing the investigation.
Google's response to the FCC was not unusual. At every step of the way, the company has delayed,
denied and obstructed investigations into its data collection. It has consistently resisted providing
information to both European and American regulators and made them wait months for it - as well as
for answers as to why it was collected. Company executives even had the temerity to tell regulators
they could not show them the collected data, because to do so might be breaking privacy and wiretapping
laws! As Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, told
The New York Times while citing Google's stated mission to "organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful," it seems "Google's practice is to prevent others from doing
the same thing."
Given its record, and with so little accountability, how can any of us trust Google - or other
Internet giants like Facebook, which now faces its own privacy and anti-trust concerns? Who gave
these new media companies the right to invade our privacy without our permission or knowledge and then
secretly store the data until they can figure out how to profit from it in the future?
No one, obviously … and as a direct result of their arrogant behavior, both Google and Facebook
now face the possibility of eventual showdowns with regulators, the biggest to hit Silicon Valley since
the US government went after Microsoft more than a decade ago. Their constant privacy controversies
have also caused politicians to begin taking notice. Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, for example,
who is in charge of a subcommittee on privacy, noted in a recent speech that companies such as Google
and Facebook accumulated data on users because "it's their whole business model. And you are not their
client; you are their product."
Small wonder that Google co-founder Larry Page is feeling "paranoid", as the Associated Press recently
reported. Why? As I detail in my new book Friends,
Followers and the Future:
How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands and Killing Traditional Media,
as the new "contextual web" takes the place of the data-driven web of the early 21st century, it will
mean further bad news for Google - even though the company still sold $36.5 billion in advertising
last year. Couple Google's paranoia about Facebook and the evident failure of its latest social network,
Google Plus, with its problems about privacy, trust and anti-trust, and it's no surprise that executives
are feeling paranoid.
After all, they are facing the very real prospect of waging a defensive war on many fronts - social,
privacy, and trust - simultaneously. Despite its incredible reach, power and profit, it's a war that
Google - the 21st century equivalent of the still-powerful but increasingly irrelevant Microsoft -
may well be destined to lose, along with the trust its users have long extended to one of the world's
most powerful brands.
Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two former Stanford geeks who founded the company that has
become synonymous with Internet searching, and you'll find more than a million entries each. But amid
the inevitable dump of press clippings, corporate bios, and conference appearances, there's very little
about Page's and Brin's personal lives; it's as if the pair had known all along that Google would change
the way we acquire information, and had carefully insulated their lives-putting their homes under other
people's names, choosing unlisted numbers, abstaining from posting anything personal on web pages.
That obsession with privacy may explain Google's puzzling reaction last year, when Elinor Mills, a
reporter with the tech news service Cnet, ran a search on Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published the
results: Schmidt lived with his wife in Atherton, California, was worth about $1.5 billion, had dumped
about $140 million in Google shares that year, was an amateur pilot, and had been to the Burning Man
festival. Google threw a fit, claimed that the information was a security threat, and announced
it was blacklisting cnet's reporters for a year. (The company eventually backed down.) It was
a peculiar response, especially given that the information Mills published was far less intimate than
the details easily found online on every one of us. But then, this is something of a pattern with Google:
When it comes to information, it knows what's best.
From the start, Google's informal motto has been
"Don't Be Evil," and the company earned cred early on by going toe-to-toe with Microsoft over desktop
software and other issues. But make no mistake. Faced with doing the right thing or doing what is in
its best interests, Google has almost always chosen expediency. In 2002, it removed links to an anti-Scientology
site after the Church of Scientology claimed copyright infringement. Scores of website operators have
complained that Google pulls ads if it discovers words on a page that it apparently has flagged, although
it will not say what those words are. In September, Google handed over the records of some users of
its social-networking service, Orkut, to the Brazilian government, which was investigating alleged
racist, homophobic, and pornographic content.
Google's stated mission may be to provide "unbiased, accurate, and free access to information,"
but that didn't stop it from censoring its Chinese search engine to gain access to a lucrative market
(prompting Bill Gates to crack that perhaps the motto should be "Do Less Evil"). Now that the company
is publicly traded, it has a legal responsibility to its shareholders and bottom line that overrides
any higher calling.
So the question is not whether Google will always do the right thing-it hasn't, and it won't.
It's whether Google, with its insatiable thirst for your personal data, has become the greatest
threat to privacy ever known, a vast informational honey pot that attracts hackers, crackers, online
thieves, and-perhaps most worrisome of all-a government intent on finding convenient ways to spy on
its own citizenry.
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to worry about such a threat. "I always thought it was fertile
ground for the government to snoop," CEO Schmidt told a search engine conference in San Jose, California,
in August. While Google earned praise from civil libertarians earlier this year when it resisted a
Justice Department subpoena for millions of search queries in connection with a child pornography case,
don't expect it will stand up to the government every time: On its website, Google asserts that it
"does comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders, or subpoenas seeking
personal information."
What's at stake? Over the years, Google has collected a staggering amount of data, and the company
cheerfully admits that in nine years of operation, it has never knowingly erased a single search query.
It's the biggest data pack rat west of the NSA, and for good reason: 99 percent of its revenue
comes from selling ads that are specifically targeted to a user's interests. "Google's entire value
proposition is to figure out what people want," says Eric Goldman, a professor at Silicon Valley's
Santa Clara School of Law and director of the High Tech Law Institute. "But to read our minds, they
need to know a lot about us."
Every search engine gathers information about its users-primarily by sending us "cookies," or text
files that track our online movements. Most cookies expire within a few months or years. Google's,
though, don't expire until 2038. Until then, when you use the company's search engine or visit any
of myriad affiliated sites, it will record what you search for and when, which links you click on,
which ads you access. Google's cookies can't identify you by name, but they log your computer's
IP address; by way of metaphor, Google doesn't have your driver's license number, but it knows
the license plate number of the car you are driving. And search queries are windows into our souls,
as 658,000 AOL users learned when their search profiles were mistakenly posted on the Internet: Would
user 1997374 have searched for information on better erections or cunnilingus if he'd known that AOL
was recording every keystroke? Would user 22155378 have keyed in "marijuana detox" over and over knowing
someone could play it all back for the world to see? If you've ever been seized by a morbid curiosity
after a night of hard drinking, a search engine knows-and chances are it's Google, which owns roughly
half of the entire search market and processes more than 3 billion queries a month.
And Google knows far more than that. If you are a Gmail user, Google stashes copies of every
email you send and receive. If you use any of its other products-Google Maps, Froogle, Google
Book Search, Google Earth, Google Scholar, Talk, Images, Video, and News-it will keep track of which
directions you seek, which products you shop for, which phrases you research in a book, which satellite
photos and news stories you view, and on and on. Served up à la carte, this is probably no big deal.
Many websites stow snippets of your data. The problem is that there's nothing to prevent Google from
combining all of this information to create detailed dossiers on its customers, something the company
admits is possible in principle. Soon Google may even be able to keep track of users in the real world:
Its latest move is into free wifi, which will require it to know your whereabouts (i.e., which router
you are closest to).
Google insists that it uses individual data only to provide targeted advertising. But history
shows that information seldom remains limited to the purpose for which it was collected. Accordingly,
some privacy advocates suggest that Google and other search companies should stop hoarding user queries
altogether: Internet searches, argues Lillie Coney of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, are
part of your protected personal space just like your physical home. In February, Rep. Edward Markey
(D-Mass.) introduced legislation to this effect, but Republicans have kept it stalled in committee.
Google, which only recently retained a lobbying firm in Washington, is among the tech companies fighting
the measure.
When I first contacted Google for this story, a company publicist insisted I provide a list of detailed
questions, in writing; when I said that I had a problem with a source dictating the terms for an interview,
he claimed that everyone who covers Google-including the New York Times and the Wall Street
Journal-submits advance questions. (A Times spokeswoman told me the paper sees no ethical
problems with such a procedure, though individual reporters' decisions may vary; an editor in charge
of editorial standards at the Journal said the same thing.) The Google flack assured me that this was
so he could find the best person for me to talk to-more information for Google, so that Google could
better serve me.
Eventually he agreed to put me in touch, sans scripted questions, with Nicole Wong, Google's associate
corporate counsel. I asked her if the company had ever been subpoenaed for user records, and whether
it had complied. She said yes, but wouldn't comment on how many times. Google's website says that as
a matter of policy the company does "not publicly discuss the nature, number or specifics of law enforcement
requests."
So can you trust Google only as far as you can trust the Bush administration? "I don't know," Wong
replied. "I've never been asked that question before."
For a company that for the longest time was touted to "not have a product," Google is doing plenty
well, and is poised to bring us all into the new age of connectivity.
- Google made $33.3 billion last year
With 97% ($32.2 bil) coming from online ads
Making Google Ads more valuable than Panama (GDP)[3]
And the 31 poorest countries in the world combined
- 70% of this revenue is from adwords, which allows business to advertise by popular keywords
Most expensive keywords
1. Insurance: $54.31 per click
2. Mortgage:$47.12 per click
3. Attorney $47.07 per click
4. Loans:$44.28 per click
5. Credit $36.06 per click
6. Lawyer
7. Donate
8. Degree
9. hosting
10. Claim
11. Conference Call
12. Trading
13. Software
14. Recovery
15. Transfer
16. Gas/Electricity
17. Classes
18. Rehab
19. Treatment
20. Cord Blood
- And 30% is from adsense
which allows business to advertise on particular sites
Some of the most expensive ad placements
CBS March Madness on Demand $70 cost per thousand views
Hulu $35 cost per thousand views
Aol homepage takeover $500,000-$700,000
Chances are, you'll click on a link at some point. Google wants you to stay online as long as
possible.
Both Google and other acquisitions are furthering Google's cause.
Google
Google is the lab where future projects are developed. There, several ways in which to keep
you online have been developed:
Driverless cars
300,000 miles have been logged in Google's driverless cars, which use sensors and Google map technology
to keep you on the road
If you don't have to pay attention to the road, you can be online, for work, play, Google, etc.
Google Glass
A form of augmented reality glasses, allow you to be online all the time with an unobtrusive display
within your upper visual field
The "web of things"
Involves embedding many ordinary devices with internet connectivity.
Televisions, thermostats, refrigerators
Google Fiber
Is busy hooking up Kansas City, Missouri, Provo, Utah, and Austin Texas, with lighting fast fiber
optic internet access
Including: 1 terabyte of Google drive storage
and, 2 terabyte DVR service for subscribers
That can record up to 8 tv shows at once
Time Magazine has noted that Google does not want to enter the ISP business, but rather wants
to shame existing ISPs into improving service so searches can be done more quickly
Plans for an elevator to space...
Because what would you do out there without Google maps?
Other acquisitions by Google Include:
Youtube
Purchased for a--then--astounding $1.65 billion in 2006
Youtube has proved to be plenty worth it
As it is now the third most popular site online, with billions of ads shown yearly
Motorola Mobility
Purchased in 2011 for $12.5 billion.
Motorola is one of 39 Android handset producers
Was bought primarily to "supercharge the Android ecosystem."
Other Acquisitions include
$676 mil for ITA software, a company merged into Google Flights
$450 mil for Wildfire Interactive, a social network marketing engine
$400 mil for AdMeld, an online advertising service
$1.3 bil for Waze, a socially driven mapping technology to merge with Google Maps
And $228 mil for slide.com, a social gaming site
With 83.18% of searches worldwide occurring on Google, and the right people thinking about how
to funnel that for the collective, and profitable, good, Google's not going anywhere. Just buckle
up and enjoy the ride.
Want to throw the world into sheer URL panic and outright informational chaos? Then just take out
Google.
At least that is what a brief five minute outage of the world's favorite search engine on Friday
night shows, when after all of Google's services were hit with unprecedented downtime from 3:52 pm
until 3:57 pm Pacific Dauylight Time, some 40% of global internet traffic was lobbed off.
As the
DailyNews reports, based on web analytics company GoSquared, there was a massive dip in internet
traffic during the brief blackout as users struggled to find what it was they were looking for on the
worldwide web.
Yet instead of other web-based search engines benefitting from GOOG's downtime (apparently nobody
has heard of Yahoo, despite its attractive CEO
gracing the cover of Vogue and engaging in such other serious CEO activities), it was Twitter that
saw the surge in traffic:
According to Topsy analytics, tweets per minute skyrocketed around the point that Google went black,
from an average of 200 tweets per minute about Google to more than 1,000.
"For five freakin' minutes!" one Twitter user complained. Another wrote, "Google was down
for five minutes… Is it a sign that the END OF THE WORLD has started?"
SkyNews has more:
The tech company said all of its services from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube to Google Drive
went down for between one and five minutes last night.
The reason for the outage is not yet known, and Google refused to provide any further information
when contacted by Sky News Online.
"That's huge," said GoSquared developer Simon Tabor. "As internet users, our reliance on Google.com
being up is huge.
"It's also of note that pageviews spiked shortly afterwards, as users managed to get to their destination."
A message on the Google Apps Dashboard showed all of its services were hit.
surf0766
Hooking in the new NSA equipment...
CheapBastard
When the Midget porn sites went dark, the SEC panicked ... thinking they were caught ... and shut
off ... again.
ebworthen
People might actually understand their serfdom if they didn't have stuff to distract them.
LetThemEatRand
It was already clear. They had to plug in a new system because they are afraid public outrage (there
actually is a little, surprisingly) will make them pretend to stop doing it.
This way, they can curtail the old spy network and switch over to the new one, and it will be the
least untruthful testimony to say "we shut it down."
Posted by Soulskill
from the focusing-on-the-bottom-line dept.
One of the things Google is known for is giving their employees so-called '20%
time' - that is, the freedom to use a fifth of their working hours to pursue their own projects.
Many of these projects have directly improved Google's existing products, and some have spawned
new products entirely. An article at Quartz on Friday made that claim that
20% time was all but dead at Google, largely due to interference from upper management. Some
Google engineers responded, and said that
it has essentially turned into 120% time - they're still free to undertake their own projects,
but they typically need their whole normal work week to meet productivity goals. "What 20% time
really means is that you- as a Google eng- have access to, and can use, Google's compute infrastructure
to experiment and build new systems. The infrastructure, and the associated software tools, can
be leveraged in 20% time to make an eng far more productive than they normally would be."
An article at Ars makes the case that this is not necessarily a bad thing, because Google has enough
good products that simply need iteration now,
making the more innovative 20% time less useful.
"Google wasn't hurting for successful products when it started to tout its 20 percent time: off
the backs of its pre-IPO services, it earned a market cap of over $23 billion. But if it was a company
that wanted to grow and diversify beyond products that were either related to search or derivative
of what already existed, it needed more ideas, better ideas, as quickly as possible. Hence, liberal
use of 20 percent time made a lot of sense.
Now, Google is not only an enormous company of nearly 45,000 employees with a market cap twelve
times that of its first IPO ($286 billion), it has a lot of big products that it wants to make work.
More than it needs more ideas, it needs to make the ideas it has great."
Anonymous Coward
Object lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
The stock market kills companies.
Cryacin
Re: Object lesson (Score:2)
This comes down to the discovery that ideas are an expense. Until the execution of the idea has
been implemented, an idea just burns money. Ideas are plenty, especially in Google since for quite
some time now, there has been a surplus generated by financial and cultural encouragement.
Google has realised that now it needs to focus in on execution rather than get more expenses. It
is the unfortunate reality of making a profit, rather than an endless and inefficient reinvestment
cycle.
There are laws and rules that require publicly traded companies to maximize stockholder profit.
No [truthonthemarket.com]
no [latimes.com]
no [wikipedia.org]
no [yahoo.com]!
It's not really true. It's not completely false to talk about the need of public companies
to take into consideration , but there are significant problems with the argument most of the time
you see someone trot out that line. Shareholder wealth maximization is a consideration, but is by
far need not be be-all, end-all goal from a legal perspective. This is particularly true in this scenario
of 20% time, because if the board thought that 20% time was a good thing to have from the company's
perspective, they would be completely allowed to implement it.
"While the duty to maximize shareholder value may be a useful shorthand for a corporate manager
to think about how to act on a day to day basis, this is not legally required or enforceable. The
only constraint on board decision making is a pair of duties â" the âoeduty of careâ and the âoeduty
of loyalty.â The duty of care requires boards to be well informed and to make deliberate decisions
after careful consideration of the issues. Importantly, board members are entitled to rely on experts
and corporate officers for their information, can easily comply with duty of care obligations by spending
shareholder money on lawyers and process, and, in any event, are routinely indemnified against damages
for any breaches of this duty. The duty of loyalty self evidently requires board members to put the
interests of the corporation ahead of their own personal interest."
"But if shareholder value thinking is counterproductive, how did it become so prevalent? Non-experts
often assume the approach is rooted in law, and that public companies are legally required to maximize
profits and shareholder returns. This is pure myth. Thanks to a legal doctrine called the business
judgment rule, corporate directors who refrain from using corporate funds to line their own pockets
remain legally free to pursue almost any other objective, including providing secure jobs to employees,
quality products for consumers and research and tax revenues to benefit society."
"[Dodge vs. Ford Motor Company] is frequently cited as support for the idea that "corporate law
requires boards of directors to maximize shareholder wealth." The following articles attempt to refute
that interpretation.... In that context, the Dodge decision is viewed as a mixed result for both sides
of the dispute. Ford was denied the ability to arbitrarily undermine the profitability of the firm,
and thereby eliminate future dividends. Under the upheld business judgment rule, however, Ford was
given considerable leeway via control of his board about what investments he could make. That left
him with considerable influence over dividends, but not as complete control as he wished."
"Many of us have heard that corporations are legally required to maximize shareholder value. Guess
what, they are not. The law in the United States does not require management to maximize shareholder
value (except under rare circumstances such as when the company gets put up for sale). This may surprise
you because you've also probably also heard that shareholders own the corporation. That's not true
either."
"In case law speak, judicial commentary articulating an opinion and not decisive to the case is
known as "dicta" and is not binding in the court of law. The comments that have made Dodge v. Ford
the single-most known case for defining a corporation's duty to maximize shareholder growth...comes
in, well, dicta."
Google's Spymasters Are Now Worried About Your Secrets Apr 29, 2013
"A recent article in The Wall Street Journal by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, "The Dark
Side of the Digital Revolution," makes for very scary reading. It is not so much because of what he
and co-author Jared Cohen, the director of Google Ideas, have to say about how dictators can use new
information technology to suppress dissent; we know those guys are evil.
What is truly frightening is that the techniques of the totalitarian state are the same ones
pioneered by so-called democracies where commercial companies, like Google, have made a hash of
the individual's constitutionally guaranteed right to be secure in his or her private space.
The dictators, mired in more technologically primitive societies, didn't develop the fearsome
new implements of control of the National Security State. Google and other leaders in this field of
massively mined and shared information did. As the authors concede and expand on in their new book:
"THE New Digital Age" is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism,
from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for
United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the
State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of
Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now
director of Google Ideas.
The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins,
the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States
military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign
policy.
The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world's people and nations into likenesses
of the world's dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. The prose is terse, the
argument confident and the wisdom - banal. But this isn't a book designed to be read. It is a major
declaration designed to foster alliances.
"The New Digital Age" is, beyond anything else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America's
geopolitical visionary - the one company that can answer the question "Where should America go?" It
is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world's most famous warmongers has been trotted out
to give its stamp of approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments give pride
of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden
provided advance praise for the book.
In the book the authors happily take up the white geek's burden. A liberal sprinkling of convenient,
hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, anticorruption
activists in San Salvador and illiterate Masai cattle herders in the Serengeti are all obediently summoned
to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain
of the Western empire.
The authors offer an expertly banalized version of tomorrow's world: the gadgetry of decades hence
is predicted to be much like what we have right now - only cooler. "Progress" is driven by the
inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth. Already, every
day, another million or so Google-run mobile devices are activated. Google will interpose itself, and
hence the United States government, between the communications of every human being not in China (naughty
China). Commodities just become more marvelous; young, urban professionals sleep, work and shop with
greater ease and comfort; democracy is insidiously subverted by technologies of surveillance, and control
is enthusiastically rebranded as "participation"; and our present world order of systematized domination,
intimidation and oppression continues, unmentioned, unafflicted or only faintly perturbed.
The authors are sour about the Egyptian triumph of 2011. They dismiss the Egyptian youth witheringly,
claiming that "the mix of activism and arrogance in young people is universal." Digitally inspired
mobs mean revolutions will be "easier to start" but "harder to finish." Because of the absence of strong
leaders, the result, or so Mr. Kissinger tells the authors, will be coalition governments that descend
into autocracies. They say there will be "no more springs" (but China is on the ropes).
The authors fantasize about the future of "well resourced" revolutionary groups. A new
"crop of consultants" will "use data to build and fine-tune a political figure."
"His" speeches (the future isn't all that different) and writing will be fed "through complex feature-extraction
and trend-analysis software suites" while "mapping his brain function," and other "sophisticated diagnostics"
will be used to "assess the weak parts of his political repertoire."
The book mirrors State Department institutional taboos and obsessions. It avoids meaningful criticism
of Israel and Saudi Arabia. It pretends, quite extraordinarily, that the Latin American sovereignty
movement, which has liberated so many from United States-backed plutocracies and dictatorships over
the last 30 years, never happened. Referring instead to the region's "aging leaders," the book can't
see Latin America for Cuba. And, of course, the book frets theatrically over Washington's favorite
boogeymen: North Korea and Iran.
Google, which started out as an expression of independent Californian graduate student culture -
a decent, humane and playful culture - has, as it encountered the big, bad world, thrown its lot in
with traditional Washington power elements, from the State Department to the National Security Agency.
Despite accounting for an infinitesimal fraction of violent deaths globally, terrorism is a favorite
brand in United States policy circles. This is a fetish that must also be catered to, and so "The Future
of Terrorism" gets a whole chapter. The future of terrorism, we learn, is cyberterrorism. A session
of indulgent scaremongering follows, including a breathless disaster-movie scenario, wherein cyberterrorists
take control of American air-traffic control systems and send planes crashing into buildings, shutting
down power grids and launching nuclear weapons. The authors then tar activists who engage in digital
sit-ins with the same brush.
I have a very different perspective. The advance of information technology epitomized by Google
heralds the death of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism. This is
the principal thesis in my book, "Cypherpunks." But while Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Cohen tell us that the
death of privacy will aid governments in "repressive autocracies" in "targeting their citizens," they
also say governments in "open" democracies will see it as "a gift" enabling them to "better respond
to citizen and customer concerns." In reality, the erosion of individual privacy in the West and the
attendant centralization of power make abuses inevitable, moving the "good" societies closer to the
"bad" ones.
The section on "repressive autocracies" describes, disapprovingly, various repressive surveillance
measures: legislation to insert back doors into software to enable spying on citizens, monitoring of
social networks and the collection of intelligence on entire populations. All of these are already
in widespread use in the United States. In fact, some of those measures - like the push to require
every social-network profile to be linked to a real name - were spearheaded by Google itself.
THE writing is on the wall, but the authors cannot see it. They borrow from William Dobson the idea
that the media, in an autocracy, "allows for an opposition press as long as regime opponents understand
where the unspoken limits are." But these trends are beginning to emerge in the United States. No one
doubts the chilling effects of the investigations into The Associated Press and Fox's James Rosen.
But there has been little analysis of Google's role in complying with the Rosen subpoena. I have personal
experience of these trends.
The Department of Justice admitted in March that it was in its third year of a continuing
criminal investigation
of WikiLeaks. Court testimony states that its targets include "the founders, owners, or managers of
WikiLeaks." One alleged source, Bradley Manning, faces a 12-week trial beginning tomorrow, with 24
prosecution witnesses expected to testify in secret.
This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less
to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. "What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th
century," they tell us, "technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st." Without even
understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell's prophecy. If you want
a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces -
forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that
they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the
future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy.
Julian Assange is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks and author of "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the
Future of the Internet."
It used to be that every new phone was heralded as "the iPhone killer." Now the preoccupation is
with "the Siri killer," the app that will replace the sometimes frustrating Siri personal assistant
on the iPhone.
The latest and most notable entry is
Google Now, an app that anticipates
what information you might want and puts it on your phone screen before you ask for it. Google Now
has been on Android phones since June of last year, and it was added to the iPhone
Google Search
app last month.
It can seem wonderfully prescient or intrusively creepy, but there is an easy adjustment if you
don't like the feeling that Google is watching your every move.
Google Now guesses what you will want based on your Google searches, your Google calendar, where
you are and things like travel confirmation messages in your Gmail account, among other things.
When I first went to Google Now on an iPhone, it showed me stock quotes for a company I recently
looked up on my computer, gave me the local weather and recommended nearby restaurants. Curiously,
it also showed me a map with directions that said it would take me 16 minutes to get home, even though
I was already home.
It is no replacement for Siri, but it is something you might use in addition to Siri - if you
aren't creeped out knowing that Google Now is looking over your shoulder at everything you do online.
You can reduce that feeling, though.
To do so, go to the Google Search app and swipe your finger up from the bottom of the screen. That
puts you in Google Now. Scroll to the last box and at the bottom you will see a little gear icon on
the right. Touch it and you will see a list of Google Now categories, like weather, traffic, Gmail
and sports. Those categories let you further manage what information it will give you.
For instance, touch "Sports" and it gives you the option of seeing posts before a game, during a
game or after a game, or you can turn sports off entirely. You can also touch "Teams" and only get
news of specific teams.
If managing the app seems like too much work, you can always just turn Google Now off entirely.
Of course, just because the app doesn't tell you what it's looking at anymore doesn't mean it's
not looking.
At the
23rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and
expression, Frank La Rue, released his latest
report – an analysis of the implications of States' surveillance of communications on the exercise
of the human rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression. The report covers a number
of important issues, including lack of judicial oversight, unregulated access to communications data,
mandatory data retention, exceptions for national security, identity disclosure laws, restrictions
on encryption and key disclosure laws, extra territorial application of surveillance laws and extra-legal
surveillance.
This report by the Special Rapporteur comes at an important time, as leaked classified
documents
detailing surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) reveal consistent violations of international
human rights obligations.
According to these leaked documents surveillance is performed by the NSA program 'PRISM', which allows
for the collection of personal data including the content of search history, email, and online chats.
Targeted at non-US communications, the programme raises serious concern over extra-territorial application
of surveillance laws, and unregulated access to communications data.
If the US government – bound by the world's most well-tested constitutional protections, reinforced
by rigorous congressional oversight, buttressed by an independent judiciary – is secretly spying on
its citizens, what can we expect from any other government? What does that say about the veracity and
accountability of public figures if the head of the National Security Agency during testimony to Congress
avoids mentioning this significant data gathering exercise and then lies to the press? It was only
few weeks ago when General Keith Alexander, head of the NSA, told Reuters that
"the great irony is we're the only ones not spying on the American people".
Sadly, this is not new or isolated. Worse, it is now legitimized. The discovery is part of a growing
tide of surveillance measures, in both democratic and repressive states, that will ultimately have
the effect of creating all-seeing, all-knowing governments, removing any pretense of a private space
free from State interference. In just the past few months, we've seen reports of the US Department
of Justice spying on journalists, the French and Spanish governments trying to legalise trojan software
for the use of law enforcement, a UK Communications Data Bill that would essentially replicate and
enhance the tactics being used by the NSA, and studies that show the presence of invasive surveillance
technologies in countries like Australia, Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia.
If they turn to the law for protection, individuals will find little recourse. In many countries,
laws have not kept up with technological changes, and are obsolete. In others, tangential references
to terrorism and paedophilia have been used to justify the weakening of legal standards, the removal
of judicial oversight, the expansion of national security exceptions, and the purported extension of
domestic powers to foreign jurisdictions. Laws mandating the collection and retention of extra forms
of data, laws requiring the provision of identification at cybercafés or the use of real names online,
and laws compelling the provision of decryption assistance all proliferate.
This widespread and invasive surveillance is has the effect of instilling fear in the citizenry;
fear that our thoughts, words and relationships will be the subject of interception and analysis; fear
that the content we access on the internet will be exposed. This fear can cause us to withdraw from
public spaces, censor our communications, refrain from accessing certain services.
It is still unclear what role internet intermediaries, such as Google, Facebook, and Apple, played
in providing access to data used by the NSA. According to the leaked document, surveillance relies
on participation of US-based online intermediaries, reporting that
"access
is 100% dependent on ISP provisioning". The Special Rapporteur addresses intermediary liability
in his report, stating that the private sector
"played a key role in facilitating State surveillance of individuals" and in the most serious cases
have "been complicit in developing technologies that enable mass or invasive surveillance in contravention
of existing legal standards".
While Google
denies
having knowledge of the NSA PRISM scheme it recently
confirmed that it's Transparency Report does not include data on NSA surveillance. Examining
the roles and responsibilities of the private sector, the Special Rapporteur
stated "States must ensure that the private sector is able to carry out its functions independently
in a manner that promotes individuals' human rights."
On Tuesday June 4th, Privacy International, with support from APC and the Norwegian Ministry of
Foreign affairs, held a
side-event at the HRC to discuss issues raised by the Special Rapporteur is his report – the
first explicit statement by a UN body about the dangerous effects of State Surveillance since 2009.
Importantly, the report emphasised that surveillance must be subjected to the oversight of independent
mechanisms before it is conducted. Without safeguards protecting private communications from the intrusion
of State actors, the important democratic tenets of individual autonomy, free speech and political
participation cannot be realised.
Judicial authorization by independent and impartial tribunals is an essential prerequisite to surveillance.
Courts must be accessible and their decisions open to the scrutiny of the public. In this sense, secret
courts are completely deficient and incapable of playing an effective oversight role and fail to provide
a fair and open administration of justice. If the way governments interpret the law, and the manner
in which they execute it, is secret, then the law in effect is secret.
For too long governments have exploited advances in surveillance technology that have far outpaced
national laws regulating their use. No surveillance should be conducted unless it is explicitly authorised
by a law that citizens can access and understand. Individuals must be able to forsee that they may
be subjected to surveillance, and as a result, laws should be precise and clear.
Further, blanket and indiscriminate surveillance should never be legal. International human rights
standards demand that each violation of human rights be considered on a case by case basis in which
a court weighs the proportionality of the benefit to be gained against the harm to be done. Mass surveillance
can never satisfy this critical requirement.
APC and Privacy International, as part of a
coalition of more than 90 civil society organizations and individuals, presented a joint
statement to the Human Rights Council on
June 10th, addressing the PRISM/NSA case and calling on the HRC to act swiftly to prevent the creation
of a global Internet based surveillance system by:
convening a special session to examine this case
supporting a multistakeholder process to implement the recommendation of Mr La Rue that the Human
Rights Committee develop a new General Comment 16 on the right to privacy in light of technological
advancements; and
requesting the High Commissioner to prepare a report that:
formally asks states to report on practices and laws in place on surveillance and what corrective
steps will they will take to meet human rights standards, and,
examines the implications of this case in in the light of the Human Rights Council endorsed United
Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the "Protect, Respect and Remedy" Framework
of A/HRC/RES/17/4.
Recalling statements made by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, the civil
society coalition statement calls on States to protect whistleblowers involved in the PRISM case and
to support their efforts to combat violations of the fundamental human rights of all global citizens.
Recent revelation compels us to update our understandings about what information is valuable and
of interest to our governments, and to demand that greater protection be accorded to such information.
As surveillance technologies and methods advance, communications traffic data – traditionally treated
as "less private" by law and as such subjected to lower authorization thresholds – becomes a treasure
trove from which the State can derive vast amounts of information. This includes who we talk to and
for how long; where we go and who we meet; who we bank with, shop with and receive a variety of other
services from – creating a detailed profile of our associations, movements, relationships, and activities.
Privacy is the fundamental barrier that stands in the way of complete State control and domination.
And it is gradually being dismantled by laws and technologies that enable government intrusion into
our emails, internet activities, phone calls, movements, interactions and relationship. A citizenry
unable to form or communicate private thoughts without the interference of the State will not only
be deprived of their right to privacy, they will be deprived of their human dignity. For the ability
to freely think and impart ideas is essential to who we are as human beings.
Watch this space for further updates and information on internet-related issues at the Human
Rights Council and related mechanisms.
Every year, Chris Hoofnagle organizes the US Big Brother Awards under the auspices of a public interest
group called Privacy International.
"These are awards we give out to government institutions and businesses who've done the most to invade
our privacy," says Hoofnagle, who also serves as deputy counsel for the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), another
public-interest group concerned with maintaining civil rights on the Internet.
The awards won't be announced until March, but Hoofnagle recently received a nomination that he
found particularly worthy of investigation. Representatives of a Web site called
Google Watch sent him an e-mail complaining
about privacy infringements by none other than the
Web's most popular search engine. Basically, the e-mail accused Google of disseminating spyware.
Google, the message said, was using its Toolbar application to collect reams of information about the
surfing habits of the world's PC users.
To most users, the Google Toolbar, available for download at Google.com, is simply a convenient
means of searching the Web. When you install the app on your PC, it integrates with your Web browser,
giving you an unobtrusive command bar with a text-entry box you can use to quickly and easily send
a query to Google's online search engine. You type a query into the box, and your browser, jumping
to Google.com, immediately displays the results.
Google collects a good deal of information about your query. It records not only what you searched
for (when you activate the advanced Toolbar features), but several other pieces of information as well,
including the time of day, the type of browser you're running, the language your browser uses, and
your IP address. Many times, after giving you a list of Web sites that match your search, Google will
also record which sites you actually visited. "Google may choose to exhibit its search results in the
form of a 'URL redirecter,'" reads Google's
main privacy policy. "When Google
uses a URL redirecter, if you click on a URL from a search result, information about the click is sent
to Google."
Of course, the company collects all this information if you enter a query directly into Google.com
without using the Toolbar. The problem with the Toolbar is that, if the app's advanced features are
running, Google also keeps a record of every single site you visit-whether you're using the app to
search the Web or not.
One of the advanced Toolbar features is a service called PageRank. With this activated, when you
visit a Web site, a small PageRank icon in the toolbar gives you a rough indication of how popular
the site is. If the site is particularly popular, you'll see a long green line. If not, you'll see
a short green line. When this service is turned on, Google keeps a complete record of every Web site
you visit. "If you choose to enable the Google Toolbar's advanced features (e.g., viewing the PageRank
of web pages)," says the Toolbar privacy
policy, "the URLs of the sites you visit will automatically be forwarded to Google." The only way
Google can provide the PageRank service is by collecting this information.
The presence of software that collects information about users' online behavior has become extremely
common on the world's online PCs. WebRoot, makers of an application called Spy Sweeper that helps users
remove spyware from their systems, says that there are over 6,000 forms of spyware loose on the Internet
today. This includes not only cookies and browser aids like the Google Toolbar, but also adware that
tracks your behavior to target you for pop-up advertisements; keystroke loggers and other system monitors
that let others lift extremely personal information like e-mail from your system; and Trojan horses
that give hackers complete access to your PC, letting them not only track your behavior but also control
your system, changing settings and deleting files. According to research firm Gartner, adware alone
has found its way into over 20 million PCs across the world.
What makes Google practices particularly worrisome is that its services are used by such a wide
audience. The company collects 150 million queries a day from more than 100 different countries. But
on the upside, because Google has such a high profile, the company is under pressure to inform Internet
users about its practices. Before you install the Google Toolbar, the company explicitly warns you
that, in using PageRank, "you may be sending information about the sites you visit to Google" and gives
you the opportunity to disable the service. The Toolbar privacy policy explains how to disable PageRank
after you've installed the app. And, through both the main Google privacy policy and the Toolbar privacy
policy, the company gives a complete description of the information it collects and how it uses that
information.
Generally, when the company records your surfing habits, it does not link this data to your name
or any other "personally identifiable" information. "Google does not collect any unique information
about you (such as your name, email address, etc.) except when you specifically and knowingly provide
such information," reads the main privacy policy. And when it does collect this sort of information,
the company does not rent or sell it to other businesses or organizations.
"Google strives to uphold the highest level of integrity
and respect for our users' information," says Google vice president
of Corporate Development, David Drummond. "Google does not share
non-aggregate user information with third parties and we treat
the integrity and security of user information seriously."
The company does, however, share records of users' surfing habits with people outside the company:
"Google may share information about you with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third
parties." And, as is the case with any business, the company "will release specific personal information
about you if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process such as a search warrant,
subpoena, statute, or court order."
Should you be worried about information Google is collecting? Chris Hoofnagle is. "I thought [the
Google Toolbar] was something that let you use the Web more easily, not something that let the company
track you," he says. "I'm rather astounded."
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page
you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only
because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy
policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without
asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access
to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors,
and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google.
Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.
Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants
to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the
spooks in Washington.
I see many discussions on SEO boards each month with people debating whether Google should hide
PagerRank on their toolbar. As usual, everyone is missing the point when it comes to Google's grand
strategy. First you need to ask this question – Who installs the toolbar?
Well you can bet everyday searchers are not installing the Google toolbar and and most don't even
know it exists.. Go ahead and ask your non-techy friends if they installed the Google toolbar and watch
their eyes glaze over. Don't even bother asking them if they know what Pagerank is – they don't and
you don't have time to explain it to them. So that leaves two groups of Google Toolbar users. SEOs
and Link buyers and sellers. Well one group, since SEOs are buying 90% of all paid links.
Most SEOs have the toolbar installed so they can do a quick check of a their clients and other page's
Pagerank. What they don't realize is the toolbar is basically spyware to track SEOs – Google's
biggest enemy. If Pagerank goes away, SEOs would uninstall the toolbar and Google would lose all that
juicy information on SEOs. Information like what sites SEOs visit, where their paid links are, what
links they are checking, what searches they are performing and who they are doing SEO for would all
be lost if they eliminate Pagerank from the toolbar.
Google has the horsepower to track these things and their toolbar is the greatest piece of spyware
ever invented. Think about it, the people Google wants watch the closest, are the ones that
are voluntarily installing this chunk of spyware called the "Google Toolbar" so they can see that little
green PageRank bar.
Take my advice. If you buy or sell links or are an SEO, uninstall the toolbar NOW so Google
can't track your web behavior. There are plenty of websites out there that can give you a webpage's
PR – USE THEM.
Sure it's an extra few clicks to get pagerank, but it sure is better than giving Google and open
invitation into your business. Don't be lazy, be smart.
Anyone who thinks google toolbar ISNT spyware needs to
look at this.... I was just doing some work on some sites I just moved to a new server a few hours
ago. I was working on a cgi script linkback.pl, note, cgi-sys has never been used on any of my servers
till literally just now, while doing it googlebot mediapartner crawls the exact link.... Again this
link does not exist on my site, it is a link that I just made to test the linkback..., and this server
has only been used today. Check out the logs... of course I removed the actual hosts and replaced them
Google is one of about four search engines that matter. There are many more than four
engines, but only about four have the technology to crawl much of the web on a regular basis. As of
July 2003, Yahoo owned Overture, Alltheweb, AltaVista, and Inktomi, and finally dumped Google in February
2004. Everything needed to turn Yahoo into a major search engine was now under Yahoo's roof.
It is still possible that Yahoo will shoot themselves in the foot with all of this firepower --
their desire to monetize everything appears to be high on their agenda. But so far, after only a year,
Yahoo has shown that their main index search results are on a par with Google's. This is true despite
the fact that Yahoo has has infiltrated some pay-per-click links into the main index. One reason for
Yahoo's success is that Google's main index, though free from paid results, has declined considerably
since early 2003. Amazingly, there is on average only a 20 percent overlap between Yahoo's first 100
results and Google's first 100 results for the same search -- and still, Yahoo is just as good as Google.
These days there is so little room at the top of the search results heap, that any combination of algorithms
will produce acceptable results. The main difference now is in the depth of the crawl.
Microsoft recently developed their own engine because they found themselves squeezed between the
advertising engine of Overture and the search engine Inktomi -- both of which became Yahoo property.
In 2003 Microsoft began experimenting with their own crawler. Their new engine was launched in early
2005. If Microsoft puts their greed on a back burner for a few years, by doing deep crawls and presenting
a clean interface, they could do to Google what they did to Netscape. There is no "secret sauce" at
Google -- we now believe it was all hype from the very beginning. (To the extent that there ever was
a secret sauce, the recipe is now known by countless ecommerce spammers, which makes it a liability
rather than an asset.) Thousands of engineers in hundreds of companies know how to design search engines.
The only real questions are whether you can commit the resources for a deep, consistent crawl of the
web, and how aggressively you want to use your search engine to make money.
That gives us Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The last one worth watching is Teoma/AskJeeves. Their
search technology is good, and they seem serious about expanding their crawl. It remains to be seen
how deeply and consistently they will be able to crawl websites with thousands of pages.
Google is easily top dog. They provide about 75 percent of the external referrals for most websites.
There is no point in putting up a website apart from Google. It's do or die with Google. If we're all
very lucky, one of the other three will soon offer some serious competition. If we're not lucky, we
will be uploading our websites to Google's servers by then, much like the bloggers do at blogger.com
(which was bought by Google in 2003). It would mean the end of the web as we know it.
It is worthwhile to understand the pressures that the average, independent webmaster is under. And
given that Google is so dominant, it's important to understand the pressures that are being brought
to bear on Google, Inc. It does not take too much imagination to recognize that there's a struggle
going on for the soul of the web, and the focal point of this struggle is Google itself.
At one level, it's a struggle for advertising revenue. The pundits look at only this level, and are
unanimous that the only advertising model on the web with any sort of future is one where little ads
appear after being triggered by keyword searches, or by the non-ad content of a web page. For example,
a search for Google Watch may show some ads on the right side of the screen for wrist watches.
While the technique doesn't work for this example, often it serves its purpose. There is only so much
pixeled real estate that the average user can be expected to survey for a given search. Today up to
half of each screen is dedicated to paid ads on Google, as compared to the ad-free original Google.
Everyone wants a piece of this new wave in web advertising, and Google is making a lot of money.
Unfortunately, early evidence suggests that Yahoo is less interested in pure search algorithms,
than in acquiring market share in a pay-for-placement and/or pay-for-inclusion revenue stream.
The same may be true for Microsoft. Even Google, dazzled by the sudden income from advertising, must
be wondering why they go to all that trouble and expense to crawl the noncommercial sector. Those public-sector
sites, such as the org, edu and gov domains, do not provide direct income, even
though the web would be unattractive without them. All the excitement over a revived online ad market,
pushed by pundits hoping for another dot-com gold rush, is beginning to look like the days when AltaVista
decided that portals were the Next Big Thing. That notion caused AltaVista to lose interest in improving
their crawling and searching -- which is how Google succeeded in the first place.
There has been almost no interest in establishing search engines that specialize in public-sector
websites. Where is the Library of Congress? Where are the millions of dollars doled out by the Ford
Foundation? How about the United Nations? Why can't some enlightened European entity pick up the slack?
Everyone is asleep, while the Internet is getting spammed to death.
At another level, it's a struggle over who will have the predominant influence over the massive
amounts of user data that Google collects. In the past, discussions about privacy issues and the
web have been about consumer protection. That continues to be of interest, but since 9/11 there is
a new threat to privacy -- the federal government. Google has not shown any inclination to declare
for the rights of its users across the globe, as opposed to the rights of the spies in Washington who
would love to have access to Google's user data.
Much of the struggle at this new level is unarticulated. For one thing, the spies in Washington
don't talk about it. Congress has given them new powers, without debating the issues. Google, Inc.
itself never comments about things that matter. The struggle recognized by Google Watch has to do with
the clash of real forces, but right now all we can say is that potentially this struggle could
manifest itself in Google's boardroom.
The privacy struggle, which includes both the old issue of consumer protection and this new issue of
government surveillance, means that the question of how Google treats the data it collects from users
becomes critical. Given that Google is so central to the web, whatever attitude it takes toward privacy
has massive implications for the rest of the web in general, and for other search engines in particular.
Call it class warfare, if you like. Because that brings up the other major gripe that Google
Watch has with Google. That's the PageRank problem -- the fact that Google's primary ranking algorithm
has less to do with the quality of web pages, than it has to do with the "power popularity" of web
pages. Their approach to ranking is anti-democratic, in that already-powerful pages are mathematically
granted extra power to anoint other pages as powerful.
It's not that we believe Google is evil. What we believe is that Google, Inc. is at a fork in the
road, and they have some big decisions to make. This Google Watch site is trying to articulate and
publicize the situation at Google, and encourage more scrutiny of their operations. By doing this,
we hope to play a small part in maintaining the web as an information tool that is more useful for
the masses, than it is for the elites.
That's why we and over 500 others nominated Google for a Big Brother award in 2003. The
nine points we raised in connection with this nomination necessarily focused on privacy issues:
1.Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when
federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and
immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one
bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land
on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read
and record your unique ID number.
2.Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search
terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP
number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
3.Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all
the user information they collect and save.
4.Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28)
asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
5.Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants
to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the
spooks in Washington.
6.Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page
you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only
because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy
policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and
without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete
access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software
vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that
updates automatically presents a massive
security risk.
7.Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet,
Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached
on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache,
but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only
to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should
be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
8.Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters
cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their
site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms,
they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed,
published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is
completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.
9.Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster
waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream
about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.
For Google users like Tim Yu, the threat of spyware isn't so easy to stare down.
Yu, a Stanford University student, recently found that one of his family's computers was infected
with a program called "BrowserAid/Featured Results," which was delivering additional and unwanted pop-up
ads atop Google results. He managed to rid the computer of that application, but a similar, unidentifiable
program could not be eliminated.
"I removed it from the registry, but this one heals itself," Yu said. Spyware makers, he said, are
getting more sophisticated.
News.context
What's new: Google is an attractive target for spyware makers out to hitch a
ride to ad-related profits.
Bottom line: Spyware installs itself on a PC without consumers' knowledge and tracks computer
usage. Why? Google alone is set to bring in $1 billion from advertising this year.
And that's a problem for Google, as new strains of spyware attempt to profit from the highly popular
search engine and its lucrative pay-per-click advertising program by altering search results pages
or delivering pop-up windows with their own lists of text ads.
Spyware is a catchall term for software that installs itself on a PC without consumers' knowledge
and that tracks computer usage, sometimes with criminal intent. A related breed of software, adware,
is designed for less invasive, but more annoying, delivery of advertisements.
An entire industry of spyware and adware has sprouted up to take advantage of search engine ads,
which are the most lucrative and fast-growing sector of online advertising. Sales from search advertising
are expected to reach about $3.2 billion this year, up from $2.5 billion last year and just less than
$1 billion in 2002, according to research firm eMarketer. Google alone is expected to rake in more
than $1 billion from advertising this year.
The problem shows no signs of abating. A recent survey reported that nearly
one out of
every three computers scanned for Trojan horse programs or monitoring software like spyware was
infected, according to security software maker Webroot
Software. For some in the U.S. Congress, the threat is serious enough to warrant
legislation designed to protect consumers.
Google in particular has drawn the attention of interlopers. Researchers for
Lavasoft, which sells the popular spyware
detection software Ad-aware, have identified one application that targets Google by altering the display
of search results. The spyware, known as "Gloggle.Shing,"
carries a high threat level, according to Lavasoft, because the software installs itself in stealth
mode when people visit certain Web sites, which the company did not name.
PestPatrol, another spyware fighter, has named "BrowserAid,"
along with many of its variants, as an application that affects search results. According to PestPatrol,
the software installs itself via downloads from partner sites and delivers pop-up windows displaying
ad links when a person searches at Google.
A hard look from LookSmart And at least one publicly traded Internet company is trying to
distance itself from yet another spyware maker preying on Google and other major search providers.
LookSmart, an online search and directory service, said it recently investigated its business partners
in an attempt to discover which company had disseminated its text ads over those of Google. The partner
had apparently linked it to a Web site called Clickthrutracking.com without permission, allowing that
site to display LookSmart text ads over the sponsored results of Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, as well
as those of Google.
"You would not believe the size and scope of the gray market in this arena."
--Elliot Noss, president, Tucows
The San Francisco-based company sent a letter in June to all of its partners, aiming to bar them from
working with Clickthrutracking.com. The company would not disclose the name of the offending business
partner, which apparently owns the domain Clicktrutracking.com. According to Whois domain name records,
the company is called Search Request and is based in Phoenix. Calls to business license authorities
in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz., do not reflect a company of that name or address operating in the
state. The company's Web site is intermittently out of service.
"We have a blacklist of sites that
(our partners) won't allow traffic from, and that list includes Clickthrutracking.com," LookSmart spokesman
Dakota Sullivan said. "They will screen that traffic out, and if it slips through, we won't pay for
the traffic."
LookSmart's temporary link to this distribution partner highlights the reach of spyware across the
Internet industry. Untangling from spyware is becoming as hard for Internet businesses as it is for
unsuspecting Web surfers.
The ranks of spyware and adware makers are on the rise, because the technology makes it relatively
easy for someone to make money. Google, Yahoo and others collect fees from marketers each time people
click on sponsored text ads. Marketers buy into the programs and bid for keywords in hope of reaching
people who are searching for a particular product or service.
Major search engines and second-tier search providers distribute those text ads to third-party publishers
and split the fees with them when people click. So if a spyware maker can arrange to place text ads
over popular search engines, it is set to cash in.
"You would not believe the size and scope of the gray market in this arena," said Elliot Noss, president
of Tucows, a downloads site. "It runs the gamut
from light gray to dark gray."
The complexity of the ad distribution partnerships is illustrated in Yahoo's recent move to provide
Web surfers with a
tool to block spyware and viruses on the browser.
Yet the toolbar application does not block advertising software like that from controversial company
Claria, formerly known as Gator and one of the largest providers of adware. Through its own tool called
Search Scout, Claria delivers text ads from Yahoo's Overture Services in a pop-up window when people
search on Google. As much as 30 percent of Claria's revenue is derived from Overture.
In another example of the cottage industry, Internet service provider 550Access.com introduced
a toolbar in March that blocks certain
ads from search results and replaces them with others.
Google's role Google also distributes its text ads to questionable areas of the Web through
Applied Semantics, a company it bought last year. When Web site visitors type in a misspelled domain
name, they might find a page of related sponsored ads from Google.
Google limited its comments for this story, citing its upcoming $2.7 billion initial public offering.
But the company pointed to recent guidelines it published on its Web site regarding downloadable PC
software and best practices for the industry to notify consumers of their tactics and give them a way
to opt out.
Google has a stake in the business as a destination site that can be affected by third parties out
to profit from control of the browser. It's also an application provider that could be affected by
legislation meant to ban types of spyware or adware. It develops the Google Toolbar and Deskbar, which
help people access search results from a central point on the browser and desktop, respectively. The
applications also "phone home" usage data to the company's server if consumers agree to let Google
monitor their habits for the sake of improving the service.
Utah and Massachusetts have already enacted laws to restrict types of downloadable software from
tracking users and delivering ads. But adware maker WhenU recently contested the Utah law and won a
temporary reprieve.
"Google's goal is to provide users with the best search experience," according to a statement on
the company's Web site. "We have recently published a set of
software principles
designed to foster discussion about defining and fighting spyware, and ultimately to contribute to
a better user experience online."
Yet Google's IPO prospectus acknowledges--if briefly--the threat facing the company: "New technologies
could block our ads, which would harm our business."
Technology experts urge consumers to scan their machines with security or anti-spyware software
regularly. Programs they suggest include PestPatrol, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search & Destroy.
"Consumers should be aware of the applications and files residing and running on their machines,"
said Matt Cobb, vice president of core applications at Internet service provider EarthLink.
Danny Sullivan, editor of industry newsletter Search Engine Watch, said he's had several reports
of adware that obstructed Google results over the last six to eight months, and he suspects that there
are several different strains.
"The bigger issue is that for advertisers, your paid listings can be distributed in all sorts of
ways you don't know about," Sullivan said, "and you may not have a way to discover where they're going."
On February 1, 2005, Google announced record revenues of $1.032 billion and profits of $303
million. Just like everyone else in the world, I was blown away. What a great company! The stock market
seemed to agree since Google's stock price hit a record high after their earnings announcement.
But
there's something that has been bothering me and many others in the antispyware community about the
search engine juggernaut. And that's Google's ties to spyware.
Spyware companies are making lots of money sneaking onto your PC's. They are spending lots of money
too–on phony anti-spyware review sites and enticing free software like screen savers or even security
software. Their goal is to trick you to download their payload of spyware.
But they're not the only ones in the act. Antispyware companies are making lots of dough too. More
and more less than ethical companies are spending tons of money trying to get you to use their antispyware
solution. Frankly, some of these products are horrible. In the worst cases, they will install even
MORE spyware on your system.
Can you trust these companies just because Google's name is on top?
What do all of these companies have in common? They do business with Google. We are experiencing
this problem first hand at PC Pitstop, since our site tends to attract people with inexplicable PC
problems like spyware. Notice the Google ads on the right of many of our pages. We were getting so
many complaints that we had to take the Google Ad Bar off of our pages strictly centered around spyware.
We lost a LOT Of money removing the ad bar from our spyware pages, but we just could not afford for
our visitors to end up with more spyware and no solution to their problems.
Notice on the Google Ad Bar that it says on top Ads By Goooooogle. Over a year ago, it did not say
that, but they added their name on the ad bar. Why? Because people trust Google. They have a sterling
reputation. But now they are using this sterling reputation to subtly endorse every spyware dirtball
out there.
Google's profits are being made at the expense of PC Pitstop's reputation. Last week, we received
this email from one of our users:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in
the first place."
A sound piece of advice or a quirky Chinese proverb? It's neither. In fact, the phrase has a much
more intriguing provenance: Those very words were uttered by Eric Schmidt, the always earnest CEO of
Google, in a recent interview with the business channel CNBC.
Back in early December when Mr. Schmidt shared this insight with the wider audience, Google was
forcefully marching toward world domination. Fast forward just a few weeks - and Google's seemingly
unstoppable quest has been unexpectedly stalled in what appears to be the most promising advertising
market in the world: China.
How did this come about? Google's own version of events sounds like an overwrought case study from
Harvard Business School: A series of devastating cyberattacks on email accounts of critics of the Chinese
government made Google executives painfully aware of the risks of operating in China.
The executives were nothing but furious - so furious that they awoke from their ethical coma, broke
their earlier agreement with the Chinese government and stopped censoring search results for controversial
political queries.
If Google's explanations and actions seem to be lacking in logic and coherence, it's because
they are.
By pulling out of China - a prospect that now looks inevitable, as Chinese authorities are
not likely to change their laws to acquiesce a foreign company - Google would not make itself any safer
from future cyberattacks.
Short of purging its servers of all email accounts of Chinese human rights activists - or folks
who talk and look like them - Google would continue bearing many of the costs of operating in China
even if it is no longer there physically.
So if the sudden change of mind on the issue of censorship was not driven by cybersecurity, what
could explain Google's appetite for self-destruction?
The most plausible explanation seems to be that this is Google's own, uber-geeky way of doing
penance for the evil bargain that it struck with the Chinese government in 2005.
In retrospect, it's easy to see where Google's purely utilitarian calculations went wrong. In addition
to their "do no evil" motto, Googlers have always been guided by another, much less explicit philosophy:
"computational arrogance."
A company started by talented computer scientists and engineers, Google carefully applied its scientific,
heavily quantitative methods to every single business decision and quandary, from book digitization
to freedom of expression. This is how they came to reason that having more books online - even if distributed
under an inferior copyright regime - is better than having none. Similarly, this is how they reasoned
that having more information online in China - even if some of it is mediocre or censored - is better
than none.
Reasoning by common sense or intuition is not really an option here: Googlers seem to check all
hunches, no matter how good, by their cubicles, for spreadsheets never lie.
But China, too, has plenty of engineers - especially in the leadership of its Communist Party. The
Chinese leaders may lag behind Google in matters of computer science, but they are surely ahead in
the art of Machiavellian politics.
It wouldn't be surprising if they followed a very similar thought process: Having mediocre information
about human rights activists is better than no information. And who would be better suited to organize
it all - to be hacked by China's own hackers at some point in the future - than the overly ambitious
Google engineers?
Guided mostly by its spreadsheets - not historical analysis - Google took the bait and struck a
deal with the Chinese government, a deal of which very little is known. We do know that Google agreed
to censor certain search results. But was there also something else - perhaps some data-mining
feature thrown in to placate the Chinese censors - that Google never told us about? The presence of
such a backdoor to user data - which may have been abused by the third-parties - could explain Google's
near certainty that Chinese authorities are behind the cyberattacks.
Of course, had Googlers paused to look up from their monitors and learn more about China and
its leaders, they would have discovered that the government's demands for more censorship - not to
mention cyberattacks on Google's own users - would only be getting stronger and more frequent. But
Google was too arrogant to notice that. What, after all, could have possibly gone wrong?
At worst, it was expecting the new censorship regime to produce a harmless Baby Frankenstein. Instead,
it is now dealing with an out-of-control full-fledged cybermonster that only obeys its Chinese overlords.
Still, the truth remains that Google failed to do due diligence on China and should bear full responsibility
for it. It is unlikely to succeed in whitewashing its business blunders by trumpeting its newly acquired
respect for human rights and freedom of expression.
The lesson that other Internet companies should draw from Google's painful and mysterious compromises
with authoritarian governments is rather simple: If you have something that you don't want anyone to
know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Now, if only someone would tell that to Eric
Schmidt.
Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at Georgetown University and a contributing editor to
Foreign Policy. His book on the Internet and democracy will be published later this year.
Google's Eric Schmidt went all out yesterday, saying he was "very proud" of his company's tax "structure",
and that "it's called capitalism."
Inevitably, this had led to calls for
a boycott of Google until
it starts to pay its fair share of corporation tax.
Of course, these calls have also marked out part of the folly of such boycotts. It's easy to boycott
Starbucks: within 30 seconds walk of most UK branches you'll find more coffee. We are basically a nation
of people selling coffee to each other with a bit of banking on the side.
Google is… harder. If you use any of its web services, you are likely to feel locked in (everyone
knows your gmail address! Think how much work it would be to change your address books!); if you have
an Android phone, you are probably contracted in without even a choice to leave; and if you use their
web search, you'll probably have finished the search and clicked on a link before you even remember
that you were supposed to be boycotting in the first place.
On top of that, of course, a boycott doesn't look like it would be as effective for Google as it
was for Starbucks. Within days of the first allegations about the coffee company coming out, it had
posted an open letter on its website; and then even before the big UK Uncut protests, it had already
agreed to radically restructure the way it declares its taxes. Comparing that to Schmidt's bombastic
comments, we can infer that Google might put up a bit more of a fight.
The thing is, people ought to be boycotting Google, especially their main cash cow, web search.
Not because of tax avoidance, but because it makes a terrible product used only through exactly the
same inertia which will kill any political action.
Once upon a time, Google search was the unambiguous best. Its page-rank system, which replaced manually
editing search results with an ingenious methodology which used links to a site as guarantors of that
site's quality, meant that it gave more accurate results than many of its now-defunct (or nearly so)
competitors like Alta Vista or Yahoo! Search; its simple UI made it easier to use, as did its massive
step up in speed, a fact reflected in its show-off display of how many hundredths of a second the search
took.
Most importantly, Google refused to offer paid placement, a relatively common practice at the time
which mixed advertising with editorial content: companies would literally pay to appear in the search
results for a given keyword.
Those principles lasted a long time; even when Google started "personalising" searches, it was still
aimed at reducing bad results. Someone who always clicks on cars after searching for "golf" probably
wants different results than someone who clicks on sports sites.
Then came Google+. Terrified by Facebook, the company launched a rival social network, and in an
attempt to catch up, decided to leverage its existing businesses. Personalised searches are no longer
based just on what you have previously searched for. They're also based on your Google+ contacts, and
what they've posted about and discussed. A piece written by someone "big on Google+" – a dubious accolade
– can get boosted up the results based just on that; and strangers' faces have started popping up in
results, like this:
It's not just the failed attempt at cross-promotion which has damaged Google; it's also been hit
by the falling value of web advertising as surely as every other web business. It's responded by increasing
the amount of page space devoted to selling things – and correspondingly decreasing the space devoted
to it's actual product.
Where's the full-blown inquiry into your snooping chums at Google, Mr Cameron?
Were Google a newspaper group rather than an internet search engine, it would be subject to the
most comprehensive inquiry imaginable. It would be investigated for harvesting the private data of
millions of Britons, for helping to disseminate pornography to children, and for various monopolistic
practices.
MPs would be blowing fuses, and the BBC would be unleashing its most forensic journalists. We would
have an official inquiry into Google, followed by recommendations designed to regulate its behaviour.
But no Lord Justice Leveson is looking into its ethics. This indulgence may seem doubly odd given
that Google is much larger than all British newspaper publishers put together. One might have thought
the authorities would have felt it worth investigating the abuses of such an enormous and powerful
company.
The latest shocking revelation is that Google secretly harvested the personal data of millions
of Britons using its fleet of Street View cars which photographed almost every home in the country
between 2008 and 2010.
That seemed a questionable exercise at the time since a few people were pictured in compromising
situations.
Far more disturbingly, though, these Street View cars were fitted with a snooping software which
could capture emails, documents, text messages and photographs from unsecured wi-fi networks. A quarter
of computer users in Britain who don't have a password on their wi-fi networks could have had their
personal information intercepted.
Google initially told the Information Commissioner that it had not collected any such information.
Then it conceded it might have done so inadvertently, and equally unintentionally transferred it to
hard discs uploaded to servers in America. Its denials were accepted by the Information Commissioner
in his 2010 report.
Deliberate
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has now revealed that Google was warned of the privacy
implications of its software by one of its own engineers. Some suggest that what was represented by
the company as a simple mistake was, in fact, a deliberate attempt to acquire private information
that could have had enormous commercial applications.
There is no evidence that any use was ever made of personal details obtained by Google in this
country. However, investigations in France, Holland and Canada have discovered that Street View software
harvested private information concerning people's sex lives, banking details and medical histories.
Needless to say, if a newspaper had acquired sensitive details in this way, even without publishing
them, there would have been uproar. Not so with Google. Yet its widespread and highly sophisticated
eavesdropping techniques make phone hacking by journalists at the News of the World look primitive
and limited in scope
Equally, if the security services had picked up and stored the emails or private documents of innocent
individuals, even without making any use of them, there would have been a major scandal, and rightly
so.
For some reason Google is judged much more leniently by most people. Is it because we think a search
engine indispensable to many of us can't have any malign intentions? If so, we would do well to think
again.
Google is huge, increasingly dominant and endlessly ambitious. A company launched only 12 years
ago is estimated to control more than 80 per cent of the worldwide search engine market, about 30
per cent of the European smart phones market, 40 per cent of the global online video market, and over
40 per cent of the global online advertisement market
Every time you use the Google search engine or visit Google-owned YouTube, the company builds up
more information about you and your preferences, or at any rate those of the person using your computer,
which enables it to personalise search results and target advertising. If you use a mobile phone with
an Android operating system, Google will know even more about you, such as the numbers you call, when,
and for how long.
Exploit Knowledge is power, and Google is trying to amass as much knowledge as possible about you
in order to exploit it commercially. It may have been this motivation that led it to putting surveillance
software in its Street View vehicles.
Here, at the very least, is a massively arrogant company that sometimes seems to have shaky ethical
foundations. One other example is the way it makes millions of pounds out of pornography. It carries
paid for-advertising alongside search results after a user keys in a word such as 'porn' on its British
site.
Is it a very nice company? Not on this evidence. Even its executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, does
not make lofty claims. He has said that one of its aims is 'to get up to the creepy line and not to
cross it'. What kind of self-promotion is that?
All the more dismaying, then, that it should be David Cameron's, and the Conservative Party's,
favourite communications company. There have been 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google executives
since the general election, an average of one a month.
A well-trodden bridge between the two has been Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's guru, whose wife
Rachel Whetstone is global Head of Communications at Google HQ in California. For members of the so-called
'Notting Hill set' such as Mr Hilton and Mr Cameron, Google is the 'hippest' of companies.
Since May 2010, Mr Cameron has met its executives three times, and the Chancellor George Osborne
has met them four times. Before becoming Prime Minister Mr Cameron spoke to the annual Google Zeitgeist
conference in 2006 and 2007. In a spirit of excessive zeal around that time, he even suggested it
might be a good idea if Google were to store our private medical records!
Last week, the Science Minister David Willetts addressed an annual Google media event in England
which ironically - given that it doesn't seem to care much about anyone else's privacy - took place
in place in conditions of some secrecy.
Behemoth In fact, meetings between senior Tories and senior Google executives seem to rival in
frequency those they have had with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. What do they discuss - knitting? Google
is frightened of greater regulation, and seeks out sympathetic politicians who it thinks will fight
its corner.
No one would deny that it has been a very enterprising company whose search engine is in many ways
a marvellous tool. But its sheer brilliance is as much of a problem as it has been a boon. It has
fostered an overweening behemoth that sometimes looks as though it wants to take over the world.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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At one level, it's a struggle for advertising revenue. The pundits look at only this level, and are
unanimous that the only advertising model on the web with any sort of future is one where little ads
appear after being triggered by keyword searches, or by the non-ad content of a web page. For example,
a search for Google Watch may show some ads on the right side of the screen for wrist watches.
While the technique doesn't work for this example, often it serves its purpose. There is only so much
pixeled real estate that the average user can be expected to survey for a given search. Today up to
half of each screen is dedicated to paid ads on Google, as compared to the ad-free original Google.
Everyone wants a piece of this new wave in web advertising, and Google is making a lot of money.
The privacy struggle, which includes both the old issue of consumer protection and this new issue of
government surveillance, means that the question of how Google treats the data it collects from users
becomes critical. Given that Google is so central to the web, whatever attitude it takes toward privacy
has massive implications for the rest of the web in general, and for other search engines in particular.