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February 19, 2006

Google and Privacy, Wolves and Lambs

Fresh tales of Hosea and the Harlot

 

 

Google recently has been called to the carpet for its recent willingness to cooperate with any request made by the Chinese government while refusing do lift a finger for the US, repeatedly citing in the case of the latter, of all brazen things, privacy as its reason.

 

"Why would Google or anyone else turn over data that might create further risks for their customers? The public policy gains don't outweigh the risks," she said.

 

The question was asked by a liberal US-based privacy activist, and it’s a good question. Why would Google or anyone else turn over data that might create further risks for their customers, especially those at risk of life and limb and political persecution in despotic regimes like China.

 

To understand this, we first must understand a liberal’s definition of privacy and when it’s acceptable to violate it, and a conservative’s view of the same:

 

 

Liberal: “Privacy” means protection from the prying eyes of the US government, even in times of war or when crimes have been committed.

 

Exception I: When China or another totalitarian regime noted for its repression and gross human rights violations asks you to make an exception.

 

Exception II: When you are a non-governmental American leftist group or corporation and wish to swoop down in big-brother style to collect information from customers or other citizens which is none of your business. (Note Google and Real Networks, both run by lefties and, oddly enough infamous for their spying habits).

 

Conservative: “Privacy” means protection from anyone’s prying eyes, period.

 

Exception I: Unless a crime is being committed (crime defined by American standards, not Chinese).

 

Exception II: Unless the US is at a time of war and the information to be gathered is immediately germane.

 

 

 So now that we have that covered, let’s continue.

 

Rife with double-standards even Reuters could see, Google this week has managed to embrace Chinese meddling in their business affairs and blithely accept Beijing’s violation of user privacy while at the same time refusing the US government (and earlier, the EU) any similar courtesy, even if it’s to protect children from child predators. Reuters:

 

Google's resistance contrasts with a deal the company has struck with the Chinese government to censor some searches on a new site in China, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from members of the U.S. Congress and human rights activists.

 

So we begin our contrasting of Google’s two-faced approach (taken from that article), beginning with Google in America:

 

"Google users trust that when they enter a search query into a Google search box ... that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason," attorneys for Google said in the filing.

 

The legal spat also comes amid heightened sensitivity to privacy issues by the company as it recently began offering a new version of its Google Desktop service that vacuums up data stored on user PCs and makes it accessible on the users' other computers. For customers who consent to the service, copies of their data are stored on Google's central computers.

 

Privacy activists have rallied to the defense of Google for fighting the U.S. government request…

 

Said privacy activists also seem strangely silent on the matter of Google Desktop in the US or anything Google in China, however. Of course Reuters doesn’t mention whether these are liberal, libertarian or conservative privacy activists, leading us to assume they asked every single one. Naturally, it’s pretty clear these are liberal activists since we do see a large pair of blind spots, one shaped like Google and the other shaped like China – so it does quack like a duck.

 

The American Civil Liberties Union, with other civil rights groups, bookstores and alternative media outlets filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Google.

 

No mention if any alternative media in China (or librarians in Cuba) were asked for their opinion of the farce.

 

To finish we turn now to Google in China:

 

Oh, wait. We don’t have any statements from Google explaining why not safeguarding the privacy of Chinese citizens from draconian government invasion is acceptable. Further, Google also didn’t seem to care to answer (or wasn’t asked by Reuters) why Google wants its privacy respected in the US while also not respecting the privacy of its own US users of Google Desktop.

 

Google’s lack of US-loyalty is the most alarming, however, and is evidenced in yet another way not touched on by anyone as far as I’ve learned: At the same time Google Earth global satellite mapping software has changed out some of its high-resolution images of countries like Iran (available on Keyhole before it was bought out by Google and transformed into Google Earth) and replaced them with much lower resolution ones. Google Earth is also pointing out (and often offering detailed information on) US military installations (including nuclear installations) and providing the sharpest images of the same.

 

Clearly this takes us around in circles with the only one theme a constant: Google, a publicly traded US company, only resists sharing information with the US government, all others are heartily welcome to look inside Google’s secret vault.

 

I think it’s clear that what is needed is for companies like Google to be reigned in and compelled to respect human rights, national security and consumer privacy, just as companies were forced to do during the Reagan era and in those previous. Otherwise we not only will face risks to consumers at home, we risk losing all respect abroad for US foreign policy objectives particularly dealing with human rights.

 

RELATED: For another and more artistic look at Google's shady dealings, visit Gaaagle.com, where you can also find the image originally published there that is used at the top of this post.

 

 

Posted by Martin at February 19, 2006 01:52 AM

Comments

Posted by: gaaagle at February 21, 2006 08:00 PM