131–140 of 172 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What, have you never planned a surprise party? People need privacy not only for nefarious ends.
So to put that scenario in the same context as the original quotation, one just needs to imagine the surprise party being ruined because the secret was handed over to the authorities under the U.S. Patriot Act.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps, "if you have to retain people's data..."?
Retaining my data makes it easier for Google to give me good results in the future. The problem is not that Google stores your data. The problem is that disclosing that data has social and legal consequences. Why shoot the messenger?
He mentions the Patriot Act and I would paraphrase him as throwing up his arms and saying "Hey, we're subject to those laws just like you! We have no choice!" Alas, Google does have the choice and unique opportunity to challenge those laws but it appears that they simply decline. That is why I think he's preparing for Google to be outed vis a vis the extent of its cooperation with government.
Next, asked about privacy concerns, he immediately reframes the question as if it were a question about government surveillance - neatly ducking any issues about private surveillance. Bartalomo fails to follow up.
The issue about private surveillance is significant in mundane (but serious) ways and in more speculative, cultural crisis kind of ways.
A mundane concern is the question of whether or not Google "leaks like a sieve". For example, if someone at Google dislikes me, how hard is it for them to scratch around for dirt in my (nominally) private information? If someone at Google is a friend or (black market) business partner of a recruiter at some other firm to which I apply for employment, is an unauthorized background check possible? Do such things happen? It's hard to imagine that they are technically hard to prevent....
A speculative but serious cultural crisis concern regards Google's deliberate and accidental implementation of what we could dub behavioral tracking and targeted manipulation. For example, let's suppose that one day I get a crazy suspicion from something I read on a blog. I think that there could possibly be a vast conspiracy and that my best chances for survival might be to liquify all of my assets and invest everything I have in personal caches of peppermint candy. I don't fully believe it but I start researching via Google. Google's AIs quickly figure out that I linger on ad-carrying content from backers of this conspiracy theory and, pretty soon, that stuff is at the top of all my searches and predicts 40% of the ads I see. From my perspective: that stuff is "all over the Internet" and I begin to wonder if my neighbors aren't in on the conspiracy since none of them talk about it. Pretty soon, Google has built me a personal, private channel of conspiracy news and peppermint candy ads. I sell my house, leave my family, cash out my retirement plan, by a van to live down by the river, and fill up a rent-a-store spot with boxes of candy.
Now, that same personal bug - my vulnerability to a conspiracy theory - may have been there all along. The change here is that back in, say, 1975 - the biggest mistake I might make is to subscribe to a few newsletters and magazines, perhaps hedge by buying a dozen boxes of candy rather than a gross. Meanwhile, the TV, the radio, all these other things are feeding me counter-evidence to the conspiracy and I'd eventually have a much better chance of coming to my senses.
But Google is unprecedented in its comprehensiveness as a source of monitoring and manipulating my attention. Like the Vegas slot machine that convinces me (wrongly) that I have a system to beat the slots because it pays out 49% of the time, so long as I pay it with my recognizable frequent-gambler credit card -- Google's AI can potentially really mess a person up.
That is a privacy concern. That's a privacy concern directly raised by Google's stated intentions of dabbling in behavioral tracking. And it's a concern that Schmidt deflects from attention by turning the question into a question about government surveillance.
Now, things can get even worse. Suppose that Google's AI doesn't cause large numbers of people to drop out of society and load up on peppermint candy but that, shucks, little discrete tweaks here and there can use the same behavioral science effects to, say, influence the next election for the local dog catcher. And one of the candidates for dog catcher has a slush fund, and a friend at Google.... Or, forget the friend at Google... suppose the dog catcher candidate has a friend who, this year at least, has found some underhanded tricks that currently work really well for SEO....
The ethics of running search and ad placement are unprecedented and difficult and hinge very much on how we update our understanding of "privacy". They hinge very much on the question of privacy vs. behavioral tracking. Schmidt appears uninterested in talking about these issues and very much interested in deflecting attention away from them.
At most only slightly exaggerating: we're all analogous to lab rats, now, in Google's massive-scale human-subject psychological research project with unprecedented amounts of automated surveillance and stimulus production. With money and power hinging on the outcome.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least he is telling you that all your searches are forwarded to the authorities under the patriot act. The cell phone companies haven't got round to warning you that your phone's location is given to the police 8million times.
Sprint did.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice? Perhaps he is saying, "The fact of the matter is that we're required to retain and release lots of information. If you don't want that information being passed around, you probably shouldn't give it to us. Sorry, we do the best we can under the circumstances." "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you sho…
You mean searching for "illegal hot nude child porn photos for download in the usa, my address is 100 Foo street", is a poor idea?
I'd like Eric Schmidt to publicly release his search history, both his work-related and private searches.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice? Perhaps he is saying, "The fact of the matter is that we're required to retain and release lots of information. If you don't want that information being passed around, you probably shouldn't give it to us. Sorry, we do the best we can under the circumstances." "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you sho…
When that day comes, insurance companies are going to say, "We'll make it worth your while if you tell us who is googling for 'breast cancer;' 'diabetes;' 'melanoma.'" At some point in the future the major shareholders (think Carl Icahn or some such character) will make it awfully hard to say, "no." Just a more direct way to monetize the data.
As I said elsewhere here, google should, if they don't want to be evil, allow us to opt for a poorer search experience and not keep our data.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice? Perhaps he is saying, "The fact of the matter is that we're required to retain and release lots of information. If you don't want that information being passed around, you probably shouldn't give it to us. Sorry, we do the best we can under the circumstances." "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you sho…
But it's worse than that, tc. Why do they keep the information for so long? Because they are required? No. They monetize it. Sooooo, in the future there will come great pressure to increase the value of Google stock. Not today, perhaps, but some day. When that day comes, insurance companies are going to say, "We'll make it worth your while if you tell us who is googling for 'breast cancer;' 'diabetes;' 'melanoma.'" A…
And I don't buy your slippery slope argument. Sure, Google could sell your search patterns. And your ISP could sell your browsing habits. And ask.com's AskEraser feature could all be a lie and it too could be selling your queries...
Ultimately if you don't trust Google with your search queries, then you should take Schmidt's advice and not query anything embarrassing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice? Perhaps he is saying, "The fact of the matter is that we're required to retain and release lots of information. If you don't want that information being passed around, you probably shouldn't give it to us. Sorry, we do the best we can under the circumstances." "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you sho…
It could also, of course, be simple uncritical rationalization. If staying in business and out of the cross-hairs of the DoJ's anti-trust division means you have to play ball with some data retention "requests," then you're probably going to rationalize a million tenuously logical reasons why that's the right thing to do.