Dear Google, What is privacy?
In case you didn’t notice Google dropped its new product line this week. The search company revealed its new mobile phone, Wifi system, updated chrome cast system, home assistant and virtual reality system in one drop. The tech is impressive. Ever run out of photo storage on your phone? Google’s phone, Pixel has a feature that automatically stores your photos in the cloud. No on device storage necessary.
Google’s motto is “Don’t be Evil.” Quite an existential stance for a company to take. However in recent years the search giant has come under scrutiny for its many practices and in particular it’s privacy practices. Google has a lot of personal data on its users. That is in fact how they make a good portion of their money. Every time you search for something Google’s algorithm targets you with ads based on your searches.
Let’s jump to Google’s launch of Gmail on April 1st, 2004. As the launch was happening, users and privacy advocates criticized the company for the model of scanning users emails in order to target ads to them. Privacy of users was a big concern. People didn’t want some large company to know so much about them. Google argued that having a free email service out weighed the cost of taking a small amount of personal data from its users. The public was hesitant but eventually embraced the idea of Gmail.
Google and privacy advocates would have another contest when a system called street view came into existence. For Google having a comprehensive photo record of all roads and locations gave users an easy way to access information they might need such as what a restaurant looks like. However privacy advocates would argue that Google was grabbing the public’s info without their permission. For example early street view users could find images of sun bathing teenagers in full resolution. You could see their faces, what they were wearing and in some cases read their license plates. The public was uncomfortable with the idea that Google was not only scanning their emails but also scanning their actual lives in order to target content at them. People began to ask “Am I comfortable with this company having access to my most personal information? The answer became a begrudging yes. People started giving away their valuable information in exchange for free services.
This brings us back to “Made by Google.” Google’s new products are a great advancement for the company. Its goal of taking market share from competitors like Apple and Microsoft is happening. As if a seminal issue, privacy has come up again. A recent Tech Crunch article draws attention to some of these issues.
Similar to Amazon’s Echo, Google Home is a voice activated smart home assistant. Where Google home differs according to Natasha Lomas, the article’s author, is that Google Home’s microphone is always on. What this means is that Google could listen to every conversation you have, personal or not, and start to target ads to you based on those conversations. The “privacy” of our own homes could be violated by this almost omnipresent company. Do we want Google to listen to everything we say in our homes on top of scanning our emails and listening to our phone conversations? This is why I propose the question “What is privacy?”
Where does privacy lie if we give away our most personal and intimate data for free? Lomas had this to say “AI never stops needing data. Not where fickle humans are concerned. So the actual price for building a “personal Google for everyone, everywhere” would in fact be zero privacy for everyone, everywhere. Doesn’t sound quite so OK, Google, now does it?”
What Lomas is getting at is that if Google is constantly receiving personal data from your search history, phone conversations, home conversations and emails, privacy no longer exists in the sense we knew it. Google could literally have access to almost every bit of personal information that we have. It seems the sanctity of the human mind is the only safe place to store personal data. I wonder if this was Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s vision of the world. Totally connected and totally un-private. I would love to ask the Google founders “What is privacy to you?”
