People have largely accepted that privacy is difficult to protect on the internet, if it they believe it is possible at all. Tips and tools on this site can go a long way to making privacy on the internet much easier than is commonly thought, but far too few people are either aware or care enough to bother acting in their own defense.
Even if privacy on the net is commonly gone, it increasingly looks like nothing is sacred, nothing too extreme, nothing a reach too far to be safe from assaults on privacy.
Recently we wrote about the testimony of senior cable company executives who casually admitted to plans to track television user habits in their own homes.
With Google now entering the phone business, people should be extremely concerned.
Google already admits that it indexes private emails and using the contents of private emails to target users. It also combines the private contents of email messages with browsing habits, purchasing history and anything else it manages to scoop up in its ever expanding reach into the trivia of our personal lives.
Now consider when, not if, Google starts capturing private phone calls to index them and use them for targeting purposes.
Service is already being offered to have voicemail converted to text for email forwarding. As soon as it is converted to email, it is subject to indexing.
What about those users who do not subscribe to the voice-to-text service?
Will Google claim it is exempt from wiretap laws and convert those phone conversations anyway?
Given the track of the company it is almost a foregone conclusion that it will act in precisely that manner; possibly claiming it is a “party to the conversation” for the purpose of immunizing itself from criminal charges.
It cannot be the case that people understand the implications of all these intrusions into their privacy. They are far worse than intrusions by government for the simple reason that governments are subject to greater suspicion and control. Their behaviour is subject to scrutiny by elected officials in opposition roles and ambitious journalists keep an eagle on government actions.
But there is no Freed of Information Act for Google and its kind.
Worse, the masses of data that is collected is available for civil litigation and has the potential to do great harm to real people.
Consider a couple involved in a divorce.
One is aware that the other uses Google Phone. Subpoenas are sworn out for the records on the claim that the Google Phone parent made calls that show she is an unfit parent. One of the calls turns out to include the utterings of an over-worked mother venting about the travails of being a parent. References that would never be made in a public environment are made in the conversation.
Her life is ruined.
The point is that once your personal information is converted into company records, those records are open to access through civil means or even mere government requests. You life is becoming a business record and it will be treated as a business record.
This should be of grave concern to policy makers, but most especially of concern to individuals.
Solutions:
1. Don’t be a fool; don’t use Google Phone
2. Use anonymizer.com to avoid user tracking
3. Use Scroogle.com or IxQuick for your searches.
