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Paranoid or Prescient? Daniel Brandt is concerned
about Google Print
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc., January
11, 2005
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Daniel Brandt knows a lot about what Google knows about you. Having spent
the past three years studying Google and the ways Google collects personal
information, Brandt is the self-appointed “voice of reason” behind
the Google-Watch website.
In an email yesterday, Brandt expressed his continuing concerns about
Google's data collection
and personal privacy. Brandt's concerns have been exasperated by Google's
recent mission to digitalize the collections of as many libraries as
possible.
Eighteen months ago, Brandt wrote an article published in the newsletter
of the American Library Association pointing out nine unique ways Google
can be cast in the role of “Big
Brother”.
Since then, his concerns have deepened with the Gmail and Google Print
(libraries) initiatives.
Brandt's concern stems from Google's use of a single, unifying cookie which
tracks a user's experience across all Google services and products. Google
saves the IP and search terms used for every query, as it does with any
Google service or tool. This information is saved using a single, unique
identifying cookie that Google plants on every computer that uses its system.
As the firm has acquired millions of email addresses through its popular
and rapidly growing Gmail service, linking identifying information caught
by the unifying cookie and your computer's IP address to your personal identity
is radically simplified.
While offended, Brandt is not terribly concerned about Google using the
information itself, at least not on a personal level. With the advent of
personalized search, it is expected that marketers will tap into an individual's
unique information consumption habits to determine the most cost effective
ways of advertising to that individual. Data mining for marketing purposes
is hardly new in our society though personalization of search makes that
process infinitely more efficient. Marketers may annoy you but their intrusion
into your personal life rarely causes problems aside from junk mail and
spam email. Brandt is more concerned about the State making assumptions
about individuals based on the information they are interested in.
Those of us living outside the United States can be forgiven for forgetting
about the powerful Patriot Act quickly enacted (before many legislators
had even read it) after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. One of the key provisions
of the Patriot Act gives US security forces such as the FBI, local law enforcement,
the CIA, and the NSA access to the records kept by public libraries and
private corporations. The American Libraries Association (ALA) has taken
the US Government to court over the Patriot Act and continues to lobby in
Washington to undo some of the more intrusive provisions in the Act. As
Brandt wrote yesterday, “...keep in mind that the scale of anything
Google does is a million times larger than the scale of anything that involves
discrete libraries, access to paper hard copy, and occasional subpoenas
for specific information. Perhaps the scale of what Google does is even
ten million times larger.”
Brandt would like libraries that contract with Google for access to their
collections to force Google to protect the personal privacy of the reading
public. This would require Google to cease recording IP information and
other identifying information gathered by the single unifying cookie in
relation to library searchers. The other alternative Brandt offers is for
librarians to deny Google access to any material that has political content
or relevance. He feels this is the only way to guarantee the FBI doesn't
assume you are a closet communist if you do research on Marxist theory or
a state-threatening revolutionary if you research anarchist materials.
Ironically, Google requires the libraries whose collections are scanned
to sign non-disclosure agreements limiting public access to both technical
and privacy information about the Google Print initiative. In the eyes of
those who don't know you personally, you are what you think. Under the US
Patriot Act, there are more people thinking about what you think than you
might think there are. Those of us living outside the US should realize
that much of our personal information is kept by corporations registered
in the United States, thus giving the US government access to these records.
The Patriot Act affects all of us, regardless of our nationalities. The
vast majority of us will probably never need to care. On the other hand,
even Cat Stevens has been banned from entering the United States due to
his known religious beliefs. Have you or has anyone you've ever known ordered
a copy of the Koran from your local library? For those of us with a memory
for 20th century history, Brandt's apparent paranoia suddenly seems prescient.
Brandt believes it is not too late for the American Librarians Association
to move to protect the privacy of individuals accessing their collections
through Google Print. In an open letter to the ALA, Brandt outlines his
concerns and asks for help from the general public.
For more information,
please visit http://www.google-watch.org/appeal.htm
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