(Photo source: libertygb.org.uk)
Search engines have become and intrinsic part of modern life. In our hand, we have an infinite library of information. Search engines have given each individual access to an amount of information and data that not even the scholars of the Library of Alexandria had access to. Not even the top geniuses of history have had access to the information that west easily have. Thus, the “Information Era”. This Information Era has been a double edged sword. While giving us the ability to learn about subjects that people would never dreamed of having access to, or at the very least had to traveled to far away libraries and sifted through untold numbers of books, this era has given many other people and groups access to information pertaining to our lives. Companies, like Google, store untold amounts of metadata on what we search, when we search it, and eventually why we search it, learning about our minds. In some cases, more than we know about it ourselves. Through apps like google maps, they record the data pertaining to where we go, when we go, learning what kind of food we like to eat, what we like to do with our free time, who we spend time with and how much time we spend together. I compare this to someone following us around, unseen, all day, every day. Though they don’t specifically pay attention to the majority of us, they collect meta data on us, store in their internal data base called BigTable, spread over approximately one million servers (1), and then use it for marketing(2), some would argue knowing what we want before we even do. Have you ever talked about wanting something and later seen an add in the side section of a website you’re on, or had it suggested to you on an app? That’s them using your data with out your permission, without your awareness, and without giving you anything in return for your digital gold called data.
After being sued by 38 states, Google admitted that the company’s vans, with four camera pointed in all direction, were not just recording the street view, but collecting data from unsuspecting victim’s computers, both in homes and businesses. The data collected included “passwords, emails and other personal information.” (3). And if that’s not creepy enough, in May of 2014, a federal judge refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit against Google brought on by gmail users for “analyzing the content of all the messages on its network and selling byproducts to advertisers.”(3). Not only were gmail user’s emails read but also, anyone who sent emails to a gmail address had their’s read as well. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal released an article exposing Google for using it’s software to bypass Apple product’s anti-tracking features present of safari (4). The blog GoogleExposed wrote “Google hated” these settings, and “exposed millions of safari users to tracking for months, without them even knowing it.” And in August, 2012 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Google $22.5 million (3). Only a year later, Michael Horowitz of Computerworld.com noted that Google was using back doors embedded into hundreds of millions of devices and phones, using their Android Operating System, to collect data including “nearly every WiFi password in the world”. He also went on to explain that DropBox, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and Skype were guilty of the same data collection and analysis practices, storing the data indefinitely (2).
In the same year that Google was fined by the FTC for $22.5 million for illegal data collection, the company, with it’s partner Onix Networking, was awarded with a $35 million contract to run the U.S. Department of The Interior’s cloud based EMAIL and collaboration system (5).
So, in the same year that the FTC fined Google $22.5 million for illegal email practices, Google is awarded a $35 million contract to run a what? A government agencies EMAIL system. I just wanted to put emphasis that point.
Here is a mega company collecting data illegally, and then essentially being rewarded after it. This is like scolding a child and taking away his favorite toys after he’s done something awful, and then replacing the toys you took with new ones and giving him even more new toys on top of the ones you replaced. You don’t need to be a parent to know that the negative behavior will continue and the same applies to a company or organization of any size.
This company is watching us. It is in our homes, it is in our new cars, it is watching us walk down our street blocks. It is accessing our messages, pictures, data data data. You name it, this company has it, and then is giving access to the data to agencies like the Department of Defense for pocket change.
The solution is to stop using them. We stop using them now or we lose all rights to our privacy, willingly and complacently. People have fought wars and died to secure their right to privacy. Are we going to give it away so willingly, so lightly? Give away such a fundamental right for convenience? When there are handful of other search engines that don’t track us, like Startpage and DuckDuckGo? I have a gmail account and am guilty of this myself. Most of us are, and I will own my ignorance. But now that I know, I can’t stand by and consent to this. My gmail account is now running on borrowed time as I write this. My hope is, the solution is, that your’s is too.
Citations
1 https://moz.com/blog/the-evil-side-of-google-exploring-googles-user-data-collection
2 https://mashable.com/2012/03/01/google-privacy-data-policy/#tYIUTp5vrqqp
3 https://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/4_ways_google_is_destroying_privacy_and_collecting_your_data_partner/
4 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304692804577283821586827892
5 https://techcrunch.com/2012/05/01/google-wins-35-million-u-s-government-contract-over-microsoft/
6 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-working-with-united-states-department-of-defense-2018-3
