FTC To Monitor Google's Privacy Practices For 20 Years

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.

So which is less evil?

[jellomizer]

Please choose one of the following...
a) Post all information about government request so everyone knows the government is suspicious of you.
b) Keep all request private so we don't know the government is suspicious of you.

Re:

[Sarten-X]

Would you have the same objection to an individual person taking a single picture in public, or a store salesman recommending a product that fits your needs? Does it matter that the guy taking a picture of your house is a Google employee, rather than a random person from the next town over? On a more global scale, does it matter that somebody in Tunisia can now know what color your front door is? Google, like many companies that are now assaulted for "violating privacy" like it was some innate right, just d

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[CraftyJack]

It offends me to see people (including executives, managers, and shareholders of a company) attacked because they provide a service for a profit.

Your post is best read in the voice of Jack Donaghy.

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[Sarten-X]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar, but if it helps, many of my posts are written with the following set of people in mind:

1. A half-crazed high school teacher, who is amazed by the manifestations of physics everywhere: "Convection in a glass of water! That's ahMAZing!"
2. An irritated middle-aged middle-class middle-manager, who is mostly ambivalent about things that piss others off, because there's better and worse things in the world, and thinks that too many complaints are utterly pointless and stupid: "Yes, I know

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[Anthony Mouse]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar

FYI [youtube.com]

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[Sarten-X]

If stalking is "taking pictures everywhere you go", then I can take pictures for an hour, record notes for an hour, draw cartoons of your actions for an hour, then dictate into a recorder for an hour, and I'm fine, right? Or four separate people can do each action on their own, and they're all fine, right?

The nature of what's being done determines the nature of what's being done. Google isn't installing taps on your network. They aren't recording your house continuously. They aren't doing anything to single

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

How about if your local supermarket owner sells your shopping list to the highest bidder?

Google sending cars out to take pictures is fantastic. Google collecting information about everyone to sell advertising needs careful scrutiny.

Re:So which is less evil?

[Sarten-X]

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.

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[tlhIngan]

Likewise, you can opt out of using Google's services by blocking traffic to their servers and refusing to do business with their partners.

You also forgot to "forgo the smartphone". A lot of apps (Android especially, but also iOS) use AdMob, which is owned and operated by Google now. (Ironically, it was Apple's iAds that let the DoJ to approve Google's purchase of AdMob - and iAd's failure could spell antitrust issues ("Even APPLE couldn't compete against Google") over it). AdMob is a company specializing in

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[bws111]

Do I mind if an individual takes a picture of my house? No.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet for the world to see? Probably not.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet along with my address and GPS coordinates? Hmm, not so sure I am ok with this.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet along with my address, GPS coordinates, and name? Hey! WTF are you doing?

Each one of those things by itself may not be a problem, but the more information you aggregate the more of a problem it is. And Google see

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[LateArthurDent]

Do I mind if an individual takes a picture of my house? No.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet for the world to see? Probably not.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet along with my address and GPS coordinates? Hmm, not so sure I am ok with this.
Do I mind if he posts it on the internet along with my address, GPS coordinates, and name? Hey! WTF are you doing?

Each one of those things by itself may not be a problem, but the more information you aggregate the more of a problem it is. And Google seems intent on aggregating every bit of information they can get.

Actually, no. The only thing that is relevant is the method by which the information was acquired. Whether I like my picture taken and posted on the net is irrelevant. Was the picture taken in a public place? If so, if I don't like it, that's my problem, I don't have the right to demand others to stop taking pictures in public places. Was it taken from my living room? You need my permission.

The same applies for all the other stuff including GPS coordinates, address, and name. How did they get the inf

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[LordLimecat]

Funny, in many civilized nations it is an innate right.

What we have here, is a failure to understand the word "innate".

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[geminidomino]

Not to mention some extremely loose application of "civilized."

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[DJRumpy]

Actually to go through your examples, many people dislike pictures of them taken if they are somewhere in which they don't want to be observed. Given the pervasiveness of Google as a search tool, email, docs, chat, and social network, that's a lot of data to entrust a company with who's sole purpose is to sell such data for profit. Given that, I don't think most care if their house is photographed (a few but I'd consider them a minority). Others were more concerned about the automated photos that caught peo

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[DJRumpy]

One more thing, although I hate replying to my own posts; it appears that Google Buzz is what prompted this.

The FTC case was prompted by the now-defunct Google Buzz social networking service. Google tried to tack Buzz onto Gmail users’ e-mail accounts, enabling them to provide status updates and to share photos and videos, but it created an uproar when it made users’ Gmail contacts public by default.

The commission charged that Google engaged in unfair and deceptive practices in 2010 when it laun

Oh please!

[countertrolling]

Where are they going to find the money to do that? Are they going to trace every cable and wireless signal into the hidden closet where they keep all their drives? And when are we going to start monitoring the government?

Re:

[Synerg1y]

Since when does google actually validate your data? I can create a fake account off a proxy, and then what?

It's all of YOUR fault for providing google with all your personal information, google just gave you the means. Look at the hacker stories in the news, it's always people with REAL online accounts that they use their REAL accounts to commit crimes with. If your outside a house with a can of gasoline and a match and the house is burning down, is it the houses fault?

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[bws111]

What are you talking about? It is a once every two year audit of privacy practices, probably not unlike audits for SOX compliance, ISO 9000 compliance, etc.

What is your privacy policy?
Do users have to opt-in to services that reveal private information? Show me the records of who opted in and who didn't.
How do you protect users data? Show me how that is implemented.
How do you ensure privacy is protected when new apps are developed? Here is random app 'x' - show me the privacy controls.

That sort of thing

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[Lockyy]

Could go with the tactic of emailing everyone who has had information requested an email that states that they are required by law to not inform anyone who has had their information requested. And ONLY emailing the people who have had it requested.

Extremely slow news day

[PCM2]

A quick (and ironic?) Google search would have revealed that these terms were reached and disclosed this past March. [infoworld.com]

Why pick on Google?

[msobkow]

Every internet/media company should be subject to the same legal standards of privacy as the others, and all companies should be monitored for compliance.

Canada has had federal laws regarding information privacy since 1985. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-21/index.html [justice.gc.ca]

It's probably due for some updating, but there is legislation in place that these companies are required to abide by if they want to serve the Canadian market.

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[msobkow]

Monitoring doesn't have to be intrusive. It can be as simple as providing an Ombudsman to receive complaints, and mandating automatic duplication of complaints registered through corporate web forms and email to that Ombudsmen. As long as the Ombudsman has teeth.

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[msobkow]

I'm talking about a government Ombudsman, of course, not a shill paid by the corporation.

But will they watch Visa & MasterCard's practi

[Fencepost]

Given what's being listed elsewhere on the front page regarding advertising based on your purchasing history I'd like to know who's going to be monitoring the privacy practices of the credit card companies.

Of course the REAL question is:

[aix tom]

Will Google still be around in 20 years?

I bet 10 Euro on "no".

( If I calculated the odds correctly, that could win me 100,000 Euro in 20 years. Which might be enough for a coffee and a bagel, POSSIBLY with jam, if I calculated the odds for the Euro collapsing correct )

20 Years?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

In pre-Internet years, that's like going back to the founding of Western Union and saying you'll watch them for the next 200 years, as if anything done today will really be relevant then. Even the concept of privacy will radically change by then. Also by then, Google could be the next Yahoo used-to-be by then. Anyone wanna buy a company with the FTC's hand up its ass?

Sounds Good

[izomiac]

Personally, I can't recall Google doing anything too egregious with user data, and they seem to be able to secure it, so I've been comfortable enough using their services. The FTC, while a bureaucracy that may have a bark worse than its bite, seems to at least be trying to do good with net neutrality and such. Letting the FTC vet anything that passes Google's own muster seems like a major win for consumers, and subsequently Google, as this should instill a bit more trust.

Ask for a Google monitor person a year from now

[bryan1945]

and see how many there are....

(Crickets)

Who's paying the bill for FTC monitoring?

[L3370]

Is google paying for time, resources and labor to monitor for the next 20 years, or is this tax dollars at work?

I'd imagine keeping tabs on a company as expansive as google is expensive. I don't know who to be mad at; the government for intervening, or google for being a burden to the taxpayer.

If the FTC thinks google isn't playing nice with privacy, FINE them to cover the costs. If they aren't doing something wrong or worthy of penalty, get out of their business and let them run.

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[swillden]

Well, what the FTC discovered when they investigated was that Google had stepped over the line, but had already recognized it and put policies in place to address the issues, policies which exceeded what the FTC would have imposed. That being the case they couldn't really justify a lot of fines or any significant interventions, so they fell back on "okay, we'll watch you for 20 years".

As for who's paying, I don't know, but I doubt it costs that much. They don't really have to monitor everything Google d

somehow

[superwiz]

I trust Google more than I trust FTC. At least Google has competition. FTC will sway whichever way the bought and paid for regulators will sway. What if we get another one like Michael Power as FTC chair? He famously said that he doesn't need to hire engineers because he can ask a CEO of any tech company what he needs to know.

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[superwiz]

Sorry, Michael Powel was a chair of FCC. But the gist doesn't change.

hmm

[amalek]

Id suspect its little more than a PR exercise for Google. They can now hold up their hands and say "hey, were working with auditors for two decades in making sure we do no evil". How things change.