WORTH READING Is There a Privacy Risk in Google Flu Trends? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
Date: November 17, 2008 4:16:24 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: rotenberg () epic org
Subject: Re: [IP] Is There a Privacy Risk in Google Flu Trends? - Bits  
Blog - NYTimes.com

David Farber wrote:

> > "I talked to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic  
> > Privacy Information Center, and he agreed with me to a large  
> > extent. “I think Google Flu Trends makes clear an ongoing problem  
> > with the use of Google search which has not been resolved,” said  
> > Mr. Rotenberg, one of two co-signers of the letter to Mr. Schmidt.

Google is making many beds and inviting many governmental bodies to  
climb in them.  And governmental bodies are jumping in.  Trouble is,  
it is the privacy rights of individuals that are getting scrod.

For example, the US Weather service now puts Google maps on their  
weather pages.  The effect is to not only let Google know every time a  
person makes use of the US weather service web pages but also to let  
Google know what location was queried and gives Google yet another  
ability to read and write browser tracking cookies.

There is no way to opt out - if one gets the US weather service data  
then one automatically is swept into Google's maw.  Giving one's  
browser data to Google is now the price one must pay to use this  
governmental service.

This data may not be "personally identifiable information" in terms of  
the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 USC 552a), at least not within the context  
of the weather service which probably lacks the technical warewithal  
to link the data to a name.  But within Google there is a goodly  
chance that this access data in conjunction with Google's other data  
and the tracking cookies can be linked by Google to a single computer  
and perhaps a named person.

[I've written to the privacy officer at the weather service about  
this, but have not had the honor of a reply and it would not surprise  
me if I do not ever get a reply.  (I am reminded of a similar lack of  
response when I complained a decade ago when the US gave the domain  
name whois database to Network Solutions nee Verisign.)]

Similarly, Google is running around the country offering to  
universities a deal in which Google will operate the university email  
systems in return for what amounts to a almost limitless right to  
capture, retain, and mine whatever it can from that email.  Most  
universities do not recognize the risk to their unperfected patent  
rights from this kind of outside disclosure.  And they even less seem  
to recognize the bulk privacy issues of this university-Google  
partnership to create, or greatly supplement, a Google owned dossier  
on every student, faculty member, and staff person at the university.

What is happening is that our governmental bodies, which are strapped  
for cash due to things like the Iraq war and the like, are being  
enticed to save a few dollars by selling our privacy to Google.

It is illuminating to go back to things like the 1973 HEW report on  
privacy, the congressional reports on the Privacy Act of 1974, the  
1977 report of the Privacy Protection Study Commission, and the  
European reports on the same matters.  One of the great fears was the  
linking of databases.  For years those fears were largely unrealized -  
that is until Google.

                --karl--




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