The trouble with search algorythms and databases is that although they’re useful tools they’re also horribly double-edged; they can be turned right back on us by the politically or economically unscrupulous.
If you don’t read anything else today, read Privacy International‘s report ranking internet search companies – can you say Google? – on how they invade or protect their users’ personal privacy. I think it’s safe to say they don’t do well.
Google was so concerned about this report, say Privacy International, that they’ve embarked on a media smear campaign against them. From an open letter to Google’s CEO:
Dear Mr. Schmidt,
You may be aware that Privacy International yesterday published its first privacy ranking of leading companies operating on the Internet. Google Inc performed very poorly, scoring lowest among the other major companies that we surveyed.
I am writing to express my concern not just at this unfortunate result, but also at communications between Google Inc and members of the media during the period immediately prior to publication of our report. Two European journalists have independently told us that Google representatives have contacted them with the claim that “Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft”. I presume this was motivated because Microsoft scored an overall better result than Google in the rankings.
Google, Yahoo and their fellow data-handling corporations are big enemies to take on. So why are Privacy International doing this? They say:
We are increasingly concerned about the recent dynamics in the marketplace. While a number of companies have demonstrated integrity in handling personal information (and we have been surprised by the number of ‘social networking’ sites which are taking some of these issues quite seriously), we are witnessing an increased ‘race to the bottom’ in corporate surveillance of customers. Some companies are leading the charge through abusive and invasive profiling of their customers’ data. This trend is seen by even the most privacy friendly companies as creating competitive disadvantage to those who do not follow that trend, and in some cases to find new and more innovative ways to become even more surveillance-intensive.
We felt that consumers want to know about these surveillance practices so that they can make a better-informed decision about how, whether and with whom they should share their personal information. We also believe that companies need to be more open about how they process information and why it is processed.
Most importantly, we wanted to indicate to the marketplace that their surveillance and tracking activities are being scrutinised
Their interim rankings are available as a .pdf here. I’ll be posting some stuff from it later on, for you lazy sods who can’t be bothered downloading.
Some of us were born naturally suspicious and paranoid: we’re not all asleep at wheel, googling with abandon as though every search term is forgotten once done.
It isn’t, everything is logged somewhere. That’s the nature of the digital world and anyone who forgets that is a fool. There’s plenty of those about, blithely blundering through life thinking no-one knows what they’re doing, until the knock on the door or the heavy hand on the shoulder comes.
Many of these call themselves progressives, and blog, sometimes about data protection and civil liberties. But they also run Sitemeter, which collects saleable data via the specificclick cookie – consequent to your visit to their blog, the cookie’s tracking your movements around the web. I wanted to name names, but Martin persuaded me not to. Suffice it to say if you have Sitemeter, you’re datamining your readers, even though it may be unconsciously.
Do these bloggers know? Do they even care that are colluding with the very forces they rail against? If so, why not? Dammit, even the wingers have picked up on it. Why are so-called ‘progressives’ being so wilfully blind?
The issue of datamining and lack of data privacy, when combined with the authoritarian and draconian police and data surveiilance powers that our governments are abrogating to themselves, are a danger to anyone who dissents from received political wisdom or who challenges the status quo. If you really call yourseldf a progressive you should remove Sitemeter today.
Google, now that’s a much longer-term project.
I’ll be mortified if it turns out I’m foisting a tracking cookie on someone via this site, but I’d also be grateful that someone pointed it out. I’ve done my best, getting rid of Sitemeter for instance, but I’m not really technically adept enough to know if anything is lurking in the undergrowth. Not many of us are, and therein lies the root of our problem.
