FTC To Monitor Google's Privacy Practices For 20 Years 51
Rambo Tribble writes "As reported in TPM, the Federal Trade Commission has reached an agreement (PDF) with Google that will include the agency monitoring the company's privacy practices for the next 20 years. Whither, Facebook?"
Oddly enough, another article details a surge in government requests for user information from Google. In a blog post, the company explained that they wanted to provide more transparency with regard to government requests, and have updated their Government Requests tool to do so.
Re:So which is less evil? (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean like they do all the time with the "preferred shopper" cards and such? The ones where they aggregate the data, correlate milk sales with cookie sales, and offer promotions to correspond with buyer habits to maximize order efficiency and therefore profits? I like them. They make things cheap right when I'm about to buy them. Yes, sometimes the brands change, but I'm not particularly loyal to brands, so I really don't mind that.
If I may take the liberty of bring up literature, I would like to compare this situation to Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In short, civilization is optimized to make people happy. Needs are provided for, and people are manipulated into being whatever is needed of them for the good of society. The underlying evil in the society is simply that there is no way out. A rebel who does not want to be a part of the massive self-improving system cannot live a life on their own.
Coming back to the grocery store analogy, it is perfectly possible to opt out of the system. Pay with cash, and do not use any identification cards. Likewise, you can opt out of using Google's services by blocking traffic to their servers and refusing to do business with their partners. I do agree that any entity that wants to collect significant information about someone should be subject to increased scrutiny, but the extreme privacy-above-all view is just as bad as a devil-may-care attitude.