Forget Big Brother, Google is Watching

(McCarty, 2012)


Google offers a variety of free services, from its top-ranked search portal and analytics product to its popular email service, Gmail. All of these services are free. However, does all of this free stuff indeed come at a price? Yes, we pay for these services with information. Google uses the information, we may even perhaps unknowingly provide about ourselves, for advertising purposes. 

Even though the company started in search, much of the company’s profits today come from advertising. Google doesn’t collect this information with the intent to act maliciously. How does this work? Let’s assume you’re in the market for a new car. You search for new cars via Google and suddenly you’re bombarded with ads from local car dealerships in your browser (Smith, 2014). 

PRIVACY AND SECURITY

How much does Google know about you? Should you be concerned? The fact of the matter is there’s not much about your online activity that is out of Google’s hands. It’s scary, but Google collects a lot of information about you. It can mine your emails, track your browsing history, obtain your WiFi passwords, and more. Even private browsing modes, like Google Chrome’s incognito mode, don’t completely protect you. The profile Google builds from this information through complex algorithms and databases contains information like your IP address, monitor resolution, etc. It doesn’t contain your name or address; however Google still puts together a unique profile of your activities and preferences that it uses to display relevant car ads (Smith, 2014). 

Google privacy policy states that it won’t sell personal data and will employ security to keep user information sage. Furthermore, Google claims by understanding your preferences it can ensure it gives you the best search results. Additionally, by analyzing the search logs of millions of users in aggregate, it can continually improve search algorithms, develop new features, etc. But, what exactly is Google doing with all of the data it collects? Here are some things you should know.

Google combines personal information.
Google combines your personal information between all your Google services. It does this to make it easier for you to share things with people you know.

Google integrates accounts.
For instance, if another user already has your email, Google may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.

Google tailors ads.
Google uses information to target applicable ads to you. Take the previous example of searching for a car and being served local car dealership ads. Google's video on privacy principals describes just how Google does tailor ads to its users. 

These tailored ads don’t appear to be worrisome. According to Adweek, people like targeted ads. In fact, nearly 70% like at least some tailored Internet ads. Even though consumers may be worried about Internet privacy, targeted advertising is the least of their privacy woes. A study conducted by the Digital Advertising Alliance found that only four percent of those surveyed were concerned about behavioral advertising (Bachman, 2013).

Google aggregates large quantities of data.
Google also aggregates non-personally identifiable information publicly and shares it with its partners (i.e., advertisers). So, while Google doesn’t share your personal data with any third parties, it does share massive quantities of anonymized data with them. By sharing this data with its partners, they can analyze larger trends and make their products more effective.

Google stores information indefinitely.
When you use any Google service, your information may be collected and stored in server logs (Erickson, 2012).

GOOGLE SECURITY AND PRIVACY TOOLS

Google does, however, provide a variety of tools to help keep your information private and secure.

Two-Step Verification
Google encourages users to enable two-step verification requiring you to provide your phone number as well. Therefore, if someone steals or guesses your password, the potential attacker still can’t access your account because they don’t have your phone number.

Chrome Incognito Mode
If you use incognito mode in Chrome, the pages you visit and files you download aren’t recorded in Chrome’s history. However, as mentioned previously, this mode doesn’t entirely protect you.

Google+ Circles
By setting up circles in Google+ you can share content with only a certain group(s) of people.

Unlisted/Private Videos on YouTube
If you just want to share a video with a small group of friends or keep it to yourself you can edit the privacy setting when uploading the video.

ETHICS

Does Google always act ethically? Based on the examples that follow, the answer is no.

Safari
In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported Google was bypassing the security settings on Apple devices using the Safari browser. As a result, millions of Safari users were tracked for months without them even knowing about it. The Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million for violating previous privacy agreements.

Street View
After being sued by 38 states, Google admitted in 2013 its cars mounted with cameras were not just taking pictures for Google’s Street View. In fact, Google was also collecting data from computers inside homes/buildings at the same time. The New York Times reported the data collected by Google included information such as passwords and emails.

Gmail
Last October a federal judge refused to dismiss a class-action lawsuit because the judge felt Google violated federal wiretap laws. The lawsuit was filed by Google users who objected to the company’s practice of analyzing the content it collected and then selling the byproducts to advertisers. (Rosenfeld, 2014).

Policy Rewrite
Most recently, the BBC reported that Google agreed to rewrite its privacy policy after receiving pressure from UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO found that Google’s privacy policy was too vague when describing how it uses the personal data it gathers. Google will make it easier for users to find out how their data is collected and what it is used for (BBC, 2015).

In conclusion, consumers should be somewhat concerned about the information Google collects and act responsibly online at all times. You shouldn’t do anything in cyberspace you wouldn’t want people to know about. Particularly in this Web 2.0 world that we live in, we have come to expect that behavioral targeting takes place and may even welcome it. We also understand social networks are not private affairs. We know companies like Google use the data we provide them and for the most part are okay with this – especially if we’re getting free services in return.

REFERENCES

Bachman, K. Poll: Targeted advertising is not the bogeyman [updated]. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/poll-targeted-advertising-not-bogeyman-updated-148649

BBC. (2015, January 30). Google agrees privacy policy changes with data watchdog. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31059874

McCarty, S. (2012, March 1). Google is watching you & tracking you. Retrieved from http://smbizsol.com/2012/03/google-is-watching-you-tracking-you.html

Erickson, C. (2012, March 1). Google privacy: 5 things the tech giant does with your data. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/03/01/google-privacy-data-policy

Rosenfeld, S. (2014, February 5). 4 ways Google is destroying privacy and collecting your data. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/4_ways_google_is_destroying_privacy_and_collecting_your_data_partner

Smith, M. (2014, June 17). How much does Google really know about you? Retrieved from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-much-google-know-about-you