Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:38:13 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Ray Everett-Church <ray () privacyclue com> Date: June 13, 2007 6:30:35 AM EDT To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com Cc: "'Ray Everett-Church'" <ray () everett org> Subject: RE: [IP] Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman What Lauren has described is in many ways the essence of a Chief Privacy Officer... someone who minds the store on privacy matters in a proactive way, moving easily between technical, marketing, strategic, and legalmatters, and making sure the hard questions are asked (and answered) long
before products launch. At many large consumer-facing companies the CPO heads a team of privacy professionals who become a central resource forexecutives and front-line personnel alike, across the entire company, across
all business units and at all levels of the organization. When I created the first corporate CPO position and dedicated corporate privacy team back during the dotcom boom days, some people scoffed at whether a dedicated privacy person (much less a whole team) was reallynecessary. Yet one need only look at the evolution of the industry over the
last decade to see that the need for a CPO role and/or team at many organizations has been proven beyond any shadow of doubt. My work in evangelizing the importance of the CPO role led me to afascinating meeting at Google back in about 2001. I was told that they were
hiring a lawyer to work on privacy matters, but I was somewhat surprised that they defined that "privacy" role as mostly limited to responding tosubpoenas and other similar procedural matters. When I inquired about how they were intending to address the bigger privacy issues that were already
starting to nip at their heels, I was told that privacy was so deeplyengrained in the corporate ethos that they really didn't see the need for a
role like a Chief Privacy Officer. Apparently they still don't.I walked away from the interview shaking my head, knowing then that privacy
was going to be an ongoing headache for Google. The last six years haveproven me right: with almost every major product/service release, glaring privacy issues have been evident and the company always seems shocked and surprised that anybody raises the issue. Time after time, it's clear that stuff is going out the door without any evidence of serious attention to, or
mitigation of, those glaring problems.I think Lauren's proposal is sound. But when I made a similar pitch directly to senior level executives at Google back in 2001, and again in 2004, the
concept was met with such resounding indifference that I was forced to conclude that privacy at Google was evolving from a blind spot into an elephant in the room. Today, I fear that acceding to a proposal such as Lauren's would require them to admit that they'd gotten this one fundamentally wrong.Unfortunately, the hubris that led them into this blind alley will probably
prevent them from escaping it anytime soon. Regards, -Ray Everett-Church http://www.privacyclue.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 11)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 11)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 11)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 11)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 12)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 12)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 12)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 13)
- Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman David Farber (Jun 13)