Big Brother, Is Thy Name Google?

Dunwoody Campus Symposium“Privacy in the Global Digital Age”

Julia Benson-SlaughterMarch 24, 2011

What Is Google?

A for-profit corporation Not just a web search tool Not just an email system Not “the cloud” in “cloud computing” Not just Google Docs, or Google Maps, or

Blogger, or YouTube, or...

Google is a BUSINESS

Why is this important? Number 1 goal of a BUSINESS:

MAKE MONEY

How? Provide some commodity/product

Sell it Charge for access to it

What commodity does Google have to sell?

DATA

YOUR DATA

Targeted Advertising!!

AdWords Displays ads on Google itself and

partner sites Labeled as “Sponsored Links” in

search results Relevant to what is being searched

https://adwords.google.com

Targeted Advertising!!

AdSense Display relevant ads on a non-Google

website Google acts as advertising broker

Finds advertisers Collects money Serves ads to site Pays site owner

http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/static.py

http://www.youtube.com/user/googleprivacy

What Does Google Say About Privacy?

Corporate philosophy Privacy principles Privacy policies

Corporate Philosophy

Three (of ten) Things Google Knows to be True

“Focus on the user and all else will follow.”

“You can make money without doing evil.”

“Great just isn't good enough.”

Google's Privacy Principles

Officially published on International Privacy Day (January 27) 2010 on Google's Corporate Blog

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/googles-privacy-principles.html

Five Privacy Principles

“Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.”

“Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.”

“Make the collection of personal information transparent.”

“Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.”

“Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.”

Google's Privacy Policy

Accessible from Google's home page as of July 3, 2008

Also linked at bottom of certain other pages

Part of Google's “Privacy Center” Overview Policies Videos

Overall Privacy Policy

http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/privacy-policy.html

Specifies What data Google collects How it can be used How it can be shared outside

Google How to access/update your

information

What Data Does Google Collect?

Personal identifying information Provided by you when signing up for

a Google Account Added to your Google Profile at any

time Cookies Electronic/paper/voice communications GPS/Cell ID geolocation data

Collected Data (cont.)

Server log data for searches Web request itself (actual search) Internet Protocol (IP) address Browser type Browser language Date/time of request One or more browser ID cookies

Collected Data (cont.)

ANY data that is stored on another website accessible to Google's search/indexing robots

Majority of data Google stores comes from other websites

What Happens to Data?

Server logs are anonymized after 9 months

Cookies are anonymized after 18 months

The rest????? Doesn't say

What About Data From Other Sites?

Explicit disclaimers “The information collected by Google when you

enable a third party application is processed under this Privacy Policy. Information collected by the third party application provider is governed by their privacy policies.”

“This Privacy Policy applies to Google services only. We do not exercise control over the sites displayed as search results, sites that include Google applications, products or services, or links from within our various services. These other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.”

Individual App Policies

Advertising Apps Blogger Buzz Chrome Desktop

Health Mobile Toolbar Voice Web History YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/googleprivacy#p/u/15/aUkm_gKgdQc

Does Google “Walk the Talk?

We don't really know We certainly have suspicions

Google's CEO Past history

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO

“Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line but not cross it. I would argue that implanting things in your brain is beyond the creepy line. At least for the moment, until the technology gets better.”

-- Washington Ideas Forum, October 2010

Eric Schmidt

“Would you prefer someone else? Do you have a particular government that would prefer to be in charge of this?”

-- Abu Dhabi Media Summit, March 2010

Eric Schmidt “One day we had a conversation where

we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.

-- Abu Dhabi Media Summit, March 2010

More Eric Schmidt

“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time … I mean we really have to think about these things as a society.”

-- Wall Street Journal, August 2010

At Techonomy 2010 “No anonymity. And the reason is that in a world of

asymmetric threats, true anonymity is too dangerous. … I think it’s reasonable to say that you need a name service for humans. … The governments are going to require it in some form. They just are going to. It’s not going to be OK to have random terrorists doing random terrible things under the cover of absolute anonymity.”

-- August 4, 2010

His Most (In)Famous Quote

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

-- Interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, December 2009

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?play=1&video=1372176413

Google's Sordid Privacy Past

Gmail “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-

free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services”

Keyword scans of emails for targeted advertising

Google's Past (cont.)

Google Street View Faces of people clearly identifiable License plates readable Some images taken on private

property

Google's Past (cont.)

Google Street View didn't just take pictures

Gathered data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks as well

Just fined €100,000 by France's data regulator

Google's Past (cont.)

Google's Past (cont.)

Google Video 2006 Italian court case Video of autistic student posted Deemed a violation of privacy Video removed as soon as flagged 3 Google executives found liable

Sentenced to six months, suspended

Privacy International

2007 study of internet service companies

Google ranked last of 23 companies ONLY company ranked as “Hostile to

Privacy” https://www.privacyinternational.org/article/race-bottom-privacy-ranking-internet-service-companies

Google Buzz

Originally set up automatic following/ follower lists based on who you email/chat with most

Lists were public by default

Google Buzz (cont.)

Outcry caused fast changes Following/follower lists no longer

automatic Picasa & Reader no longer

automatically connected Note: Lists are STILL public by default

One-Stop Privacy Control

Google's Privacy Tools Dashboard Product-specific tools

Google Dashboard

Shows the tools you use Shows the data Google has stored

about you Links to settings for products you use Links to product-specific privacy

policies http://google.com/dashboard

Conclusions?

Sorry, I have none (I do have a personal opinion, though.)

You have to draw your own!

Questions?

This presentation will be available at:http://juliabensonslaughter.com/

Thank you for attending!!