by Bob Barr
as published in The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Eric Schmidt just may be the world’s most powerful CEO. He is not the highest-paid CEO and the company he heads is not the largest in size. Schmidt’s vast power stems from the fact that he controls the largest collection of personal data ever amassed. Eric Schmidt is CEO of Google, and the universe of information over which he holds sway is chock-full of deeply personal data on untold millions of individuals, companies, and even government agencies.
In addition to being the world’s largest Internet search engine, Google provides email and instant-chat services. It manages business documents and personal voice mails. Subscribers can use “Google Health” to store and share their most intimate medical records.
Even a user of basic Google services who has established a profile with the company (either by an email or YouTube account, or through Google Checkout), can log in to their “Dashboard” and view their latest searches, purchases, videos they have viewed, or chats in which they have participated. It’s all there; whether they want it to be or not.
Many, if not most Americans in this post-911 world, appear to have concluded that they “have nothing to hide” and in order for government to “make us safer,” they willingly submit to all manner of privacy-invasive government programs. Moreover, in order to save a few seconds or minutes of their time, American consumers eagerly rush to sign up for other measures that surrender more of their privacy, to businesses.
However, if focused on the possibility of having their Internet search history released to the world, many Americans might give pause.
Personal privacy is the cornerstone of dignity and self-respect. In fact, as recognized by 20th Century philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand, privacy is the underpinning of civilization itself – the right of one man to be free from other men.
Unfortunately in today’s socially-networked world, and especially for young people, many millions of Internet users believe their identity is secure and their privacy protected simply because they use a screen name or email address. Thanks in large part to Google’s “free” programs and services, that is no longer the case.
As a player in the free market system, Google is responsible for many innovations. From its search algorithms to its mapping of planet Earth and the heavens, the company is owed a profound level of academic, engineering and scientific respect.
However, the company is inching ever faster and further away from its motto, “Don’t be evil,” as reflected in a recent interview in which CEO Schmidt was asked about privacy by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo. He responded:
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject . . . to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.
Those words are deeply disturbing. Schmidt apparently believes that “you shouldn’t be doing” anything you would want to keep private; in other words, there is no right to privacy. He seems also to embrace the notion that the government should have access to any information it wants.
Putting Schmidt’s philosophy in real terms, a hospice patient who wants to privately explore alternative medicine “shouldn’t be doing” that. An abused wife privately seeking counseling or help shouldn’t be seeking it if she wants to keep her struggle private.
If Google’s attitude toward personal privacy spreads, and many fear that is already too late, we will become a world in which all walls – real or virtual – are replaced by windows; a world in which thoughts of personal dignity are nothing more than quaint nostalgia.
You won’t find a quality search engine that doesn’t log your IP address. If you want privacy for your web searches, then turn off cookies, and do your searches from behind a proxy. Details at http://www.eff.org/wp/six-tips-protect-your-search-privacy.
If Google stops offering users a search experience that is personalized according to the information you voluntarily share with them, we at Yahoo will happily continue to do so. If we stop also, some other competitor will satisfy that consumer demand, as long as it exists.
Present and future government aggression is not a good libertarian argument that a company should eschew a business model that is profitable because it satisfies consumer demand.
The correct Libertarian position here is: oppose government invasions of privacy, but defend the freedom of association among private parties to negotiate how they use information voluntarily disclosed to each other.
Bob Barr doesn’t want google to give the infomation to the government.
From above.
Reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject . . . to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.
If google cared about preventing an overreacing government from using the data, google would make sure that the data was erased or converted so as not to be tracable as soon as possible.
Choose your search engines well.
This seems like a rather odd article for Bob Barr. Nearly all people agree that their own privacy is important but the overall tone of this article seems to say that because Google stores my personal information that it is invading my privacy. Google as well as most companies store information about their customers (in the old days this information was kept in storage cabinets).
Why Barr should take a critical tone about Google CEO Schmidt is puzzling. The only information Google has is provided, voluntarily, by me. The only organization that can take that information by force is the government.
It doesn’t seem to me that Barr should critique Schmidt for admitting that the Patriot Act exists and is used.