DO READ more on Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation,,Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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- -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in
Anticipation,,Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:07:30 -0800
From: Kevin Bankston <bankston () eff org>
To: Lee Revell <rlrevell () joe-job com>
CC: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
References: <43ED4F16.9030404 () farber net>
<1139633698.19342.57.camel@mindpipe>

Hello Mr. Revell--

Thanks for your feedback.  I'm sorry if you found our press release
inappropriately hostile to Google, although I would say it was
appropriately hostile--not to Google or its folk, but to the use of
this product, which we do think poses a serious privacy risk.

Certainly, the ability to search across computers is a helpful thing,
but considering that we are advocating against the use this particular
product for that purpose, I'm not sure why we would include such a
(fairly obvious) proposition in the release.  And as to tone, well,
again, the goal was to warn people off of this product, and you're not
going to do that by using weak language.  Certainly, we're not out to
personally or unfairly attack the people at Google.  Indeed, we work
with them on a variety of non-privacy issues (and sometimes privacy
issues, too).  But it's our job to forcefully point out when they are
marketing a product that we think is a dangerous to consumers' privacy,
and dropping in little caveats about how clever Google's engineers are
or how useful their products can be is unnecessary and
counterproductive to that purpose.

I think it's clear from the PR that our biggest problem here is with
the law.  But we are also very unhappy with companies--including but
not limited to Google--that design and encourage consumers to use
products that, in combination with the current state of the law, are
bad for user privacy.  Google could have developed a Search Across
Computers product that addressed these problems, either by not storing
the data on Google servers (there are and long have been similar remote
access tools that do not rely on third party storage), or by storing
the data in encrypted form such that only the user could retrieve it
(it is encrypted on Google's servers now, but Google has the key).

However, both of those design options would be inconsistent with one of
Google's most common goals: amassing user data as grist for the
ad-targeting mill (otherwise known, by Google, as "delivering the best
possible service to you").  As mentioned in the PR, Google says it is
not scanning the files for that purpose yet, but has not ruled it out,
and the current privacy policy on its face would seem to allow it.  And
although I for one have no problem with consensual ad-scanning per se,
which technically is not much different than spam-filtering in its
invasiveness, I do have a very big problem with a product that by
design makes ad-scanning possible at the cost of user privacy.  This is
the same reason EFF objected to Gmail: not because of the ad-scanning
itself, but the fact that Google was encouraging users, in its press
and by the design of the product, to never delete their emails even
though the legal protection for those stored communications are
significantly reduced with time.

If Google wants to "not be evil" and continue to market products like
this, which rely on or encourage storing masses of personal data with
Google, it has a responsibility as an industry leader to publicly
mobilize resources toward reforming the law and actively educating its
users about the legal risks.  Until the law is fixed, Google can and
should be doing its best to design around the legal pitfalls, placing a
premium on user privacy rather than on Google's own access to user's
data.  Unfortunately, rather than treating user privacy as a design
priority and a lobbying goal, Google mostly seems to consider it a
public relations issue.  That being the case, it's EFF's job to counter
their publicity, by forcefully warning the public of the risks and
demanding that Google act as a responsible corporate citizen.

Thanks,
Kevin

________________________________________
Kevin Bankston, Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
ph: (415) 436-9333 x126 /// fax: (415) 436-9993
bankston () eff org /// www.eff.org

On Feb 10, 2006, at 8:54 PM, Lee Revell wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 21:42 -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
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> >
> > ebruary 09, 2006
> > Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation
> >
> > Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
>
> I think the tone of this press release is unnecessarily hostile toward
> Google and their product - it would be a lot more helpful to emphasize
> that it's a useful product that could be reasonably secure if the
> privacy laws were fixed.
>
> Lee


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