Advocacy groups that look out for the privacy of citizens are voicing fears that about a company becoming so large. Developments like censoring Chinese search results, and taking pictures of people’s houses with roving van cameras and satellite images of backyards for Google Maps. Will the company become big brother?.
Increasingly, as Google burrows deeper into everyday computing, its product announcements are prompting questions about its ability to gather more potentially sensitive personal information from users.
Why does Google log the details of search queries for so long? What does it do with the information? Does it combine data from the search engine with information it collects through other avenues - such as its recently released Web browser, Chrome?
Data gathered through most of the companys services “disappears into a black hole once it hits the Googleplex,” said Simon Davies, director of London-based Privacy International, referring to Googles headquarters. “Its impossible to track that information.”
Google - whose corporate motto is “Dont Be Evil” - generally sees such concerns as misinformed. For instance, the company says it stores the queries made through its popular search engine primarily so it can improve the service.
But whether the criticisms are valid or not, they are likely indicative of the battles Google will face as it, like Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s, moves from world-wowing startup to the heart of the technology establishment.
The September release of Chrome illuminated the budding conflicts.
To Google, the new browser is a platform on which future Web-based software applications might run most efficiently. It also is a sign that Google understands its growing power, since launching a browser is a direct challenge to Microsoft.
In other circles, Chrome provoked suspicion. One group, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Consumer Watchdog, argues that the browser crosses a new line.
In a mid-October letter to Google directors, Consumer Watchdog said it had “serious privacy concerns” about the browser and the transfer of users data through Googles services without giving people what it sees as “appropriate transparency and control.”
One of Consumer Watchdogs complaints surrounds Chromes navigation bar, which can be used to enter a Web site address or a search query. The group points out that as users type in the navigation bar, Chrome relays their keystrokes to Google even before they click “Enter” to finalize the command.
“The company is literally having this unnoticed conversation with itself about you and your information,” Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court said.
“Google Suggest” sends Google searches as you type, in hopes of anticipating your desires. So if youre keying in “Electoral College 2008 election,” Google will offer multiple search queries along the way. First youd be given results related to the term “electoral,” then ones on the Electoral College in general, and finally youd get links pertaining to Tuesdays presidential vote.
This is what worries Consumer Watchdog: Say you key in something that could be embarrassing or deeply personal, but reconsider before you press “Enter.” The autosuggest feature still sends this phrase to Googles servers, tied to your computers numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address.
Brian Rakowski, the product manager for Chrome, said Consumer Watchdogs fears stemmed from confusion about the role a Google Web browser plays.
“There was some concern that, given a very naive way of how browsers work, you may think, `Now Im using a Google browser - Google must know everything on their servers about me,” he said.
Rakowski said queries sent to Google through the autosuggest feature do include data like a users IP address and the time at which the queries were made. But Google logs just 2 percent of the information brought in through “Google Suggest,” in order to improve the feature, Rakowski said, and anonymizes this data within 24 hours. The anonymization is accomplished by stripping off the last four digits of the IP address associated with the query.
Source: cacru