Those of us from the baby boomer generation seem to have
more of problem with the cyber intrusion into our privacy. The new millennials,
on the other hand, since they grew up in this digital age of technology, are
more accustomed and seem oblivious, or perhaps just more accepting, of having
their every move monitored through their digital devices.
I mean, really - you
can’t do anything these days online without being tracked. Someone, somewhere
is watching – or rather, tracking your every move.
Do what you can to try and
stop it, they’ll still find a way to track you. Now who is they? For this discussion, let’s focus on the
mighty giant, the cyber leader in the digital world, Google. Does Google spy on your every move? You bet ‘ya.
The Google, The Bad, and The Ugly
Frank Buytendijk, the author of Business Intelligence
(BI) and analytics says Google wants to collect as much data about us as they
can and provide it to their advertisers, it’s surely not to benefit us - those
who created that data. This is how google survives, by selling our data to advertisers.
What do we get
out of it? Quite a bit actually. Buytendijk explains that our love of Google’s "free" services are the counterpart of
the religious "opium of the people" (McKenna, 2012) . Let’s face it, we are
addicted to Google. Living without it would have painful consequences for me and
quite honestly, the tradeoff is not all that bad. I get all those free services;
like a Gmail account, Google+, Google Analytics, a top notch search engine, and
oh, who doesn’t love the new voice activated search function – just say, “Ok
Google search…” and Google does all the work for you, hands free.
Wait, put on the
breaks, before we become too complacent, Business Applications Editor, Brian
McKenna, points out that the fine line between your personal privacy and data
collection has all but disappeared, and privacy issues are abounding (McKenna, 2012) .
Google as well as
all the others, are collecting personal data from WiFi networks, not just your
e-mail addresses and passwords, but our location. Even its creator, Marius
Milner, questioned his superiors in 2010, asking Google Execs whether the WiFi
data-collecting code he developed, might violate people’s privacy (Johnston, 2012) . Basically back then
he had a concern about the ethics of tracking and linking folks to specific
geographic locations. Now this form of tracking is all but common place. The FCC
determined that this form of tracking was in fact okay, and not a violation.
In doing research
for this blog, I found quite a few instances where Google was and is fighting
its way through countless court systems across multiple countries about privacy
issues, often winning or plea dealing their way through most of these cases (Smith, 2013) .
Google Vs. Safari
Apple is now suing Google for circumventing its Safari
browser’s default “cookie blocker”. Apple provided this feature to prevent its user’s
online activity from being tracked. Basically Apple was trying to give its
users, who did not want their every move to be tracked, a chance to block
Google from doing so, but alas, Google found a way around the block, all the
while saying they would respect user’s Safari browser settings (Covington & Burling LLP, 2015) . Bad Google. This
one is still in the court systems pending an outcome.
Good Google
Enough of the bad, there is still much good Google has to
offer that, for me admonishes some of their poor behavior. Venture Beat writer,
Chris O’Brien, shares with us a look into the future of Google search - it’s
all about mobile technology. According to him, Google’s future is about
building us the ultimate personal assistant (O'Brien, 2015) .
Director of Google’s Search Innovation in Zurich, Behshad
Behzadi, shares how Google’s voice feature will become even more natural. It
will be like talking to a real person with actual back and forth conversation
he says. You will be able to ask Google to scan your Facebook app and find something
specific, so you don’t have to waste time scrolling up or down to find that buried
post. If you are out and about and want to know what that lake or park is you
just walked by, just ask Google, since it is tracking your every move, it can
tell by your location what you’re looking at. Now we’re getting a bit
uncomfortable/creepy for me here – Google knows what I’m looking at? Hmmm,
maybe TMI???
Your Google Android device will truly be one with you – even answering
your question before you ask. I don’t know about you, but this seems a bit too
personal, what do you think? Do you like the future glimpse of Google or not?
Shopping Smarter with Google
With the holiday shopping season
upon us, Google announced how they are using the ever popular, yet creepy
mapping technology, to help you monitor crowd levels at your favorite stores,
plus you’ll get up to date information on the best deals so you don’t miss out on
anything (Pymts, 2015) . As Pymnts.com explains,
it’s hard to think shoppers would begrudge Google for this obvious ploy to cash
in on more sales, after all, if it’s helping customers save time and money and
avoid the crowds, then isn’t that worth it?
If
you really must block
For those of you who are a bit leery
of all this technology and, like me, would rather not have your every move
tracked - there is hope. Google is actually making it easy for you to turn off
features like location-tracking on your smart phones. They also show you how
you can stop those annoying advertisements you get after you do search queries
and web site visits – Yes, thank you Google for that one! Just check out their privacy.google.com site (Dave, 2015) .
Finally, if you think Google is changing
its tactics, not so fast, the “European Union officials have accused Google of
abusing its search-engine dominance to favor its own comparison shopping
services over those of its rivals (Dave, 2015) .” Now I ask, is that
ethically moral, is it really good business practice?
References
Covington & Burling LLP. (2015, November 17). Third
Circuit Resurrects State Law Claims Against Google in Safari Cookie Tracking
Lawsuit - See more at:
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/third-circuit-resurrects-state-law-claims-against-google-safari-cookie-tracking#sthash.ndUG1maK.dpuf.
Retrieved from The National Law Review:
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/third-circuit-resurrects-state-law-claims-against-google-safari-cookie-tracking
Dave, P. (2015, June 1). Google unveils simpler
portal for users to delete data it has about them . Retrieved from La
Times:
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-privacy-data-20150601-story.html
Johnston, C. (2012, May 6). http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240162744/Data-ethics-Author-warns-of-ethical-pitfalls-of-data-collection.
Retrieved from
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/googles-street-view-engineer-knew-data-collection-was-questionable/
McKenna, B. (2012, September 6). Data ethics:
Author warns of ethical pitfalls of data collection. Retrieved from
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240162744/Data-ethics-Author-warns-of-ethical-pitfalls-of-data-collection
O'Brien, C. (2015, November 30). The 4 things
Google believes are key to the future of search. Retrieved from Venture
Beat: http://venturebeat.com/2015/11/30/the-4-things-google-believes-are-key-to-the-future-of-search/
Pymts. (2015, November 26). Google To Give Black
Friday Shoppers Real-Time Store Data. Retrieved from Pymnts.com:
http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/google-to-give-black-friday-shoppers-real-time-store-data/
Smith, E. (2013, February 1). UK Privacy Lawsuit
Against Google Spreads to Europe. Retrieved from IBTimes:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-safari-apple-privacy-legal-action-ftc-430523
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