Privacy Torments Google
Privacy Torments Google
June 14, 2007: Google has dodged a number of privacy bullets over the last few weeks, only to wind up beating off critics and toning down their privacy policy. Off the back of their recent DoubleClick announcement, IDM spoke to local privacy expert David Vaile on the issues ahead.
This week, UK based human rights organisation, Privacy International released its report on the worst privacy offenders on the Internet. While Microsoft listed as improving its behaviour, Google took a beating due to what Privacy International labels, “an entrenched hostility to privacy.”
However, this report from the UK based privacy watchdog does not include further privacy implications they may emerge through the US3.1 million acquisition of DoubleClick. With the US$3.1 million acquisition of DoubleClick, privacy groups across the globe have lashed out at Google’s ability to now access two very different data sets, and the consequences that may emerge.
Google already has the searches and IP addresses of the consumers, while DoubleClick has the cookies which can track usage and ad usage. Together, these two data pools can provide a useful commercial tool if exploited, yet a tool that would leak directly into the privacy of consumers.
“The problem for setting up a joint operation like this is the temptation, I believe the term ‘honey pot’ is sometimes used,” says David Vaile, executive director at the Cuberspace law and Policy Centre UNSW. “In a world where there is a resurgence in the Internet led, marketing led boom, often the rewards go to the most opportunist and most creative in making use of available information and the information on relationships.”
“It’s not just a matter of monitoring consumers through there advertising use and search,” says Vaile. “It’s more the potential for other forms of information to be extracted using sophisticated data matching and projection techniques.”
Luckily for Australians though, it’s likely that most citizens are not even aware of these grave privacy concerns. “Most ordinary people will have difficulty understanding the full extent of what’s actually going on,” says Vaile. “In matters of the Internet, IT and communications, constant changes are occurring and it’s filled with acronyms, terms and jargons as well as a combination of software, hardware and communication links.”
It’s also difficult for consumers to actually have the resources to acknowledge if there is something to be concerned about. “There are no requirements in practice to give access rights to individuals to find out the information held about them, it’s all very hard to track. There are not fingerprints that come with these results,” says Vaile.
For more from David Vaile and the Google privacy backlash, watch out for the upcoming July/August edition of IDM Magazine