

Gagging on Google - quoderat
http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/04/gagging-on-google/

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abrahamsen
This is about the transparent society versus the surveillance society.

Google represents the transparent society. Tons of information that used to be
public but impractical to collect is now available to ordinary citizens, who
can use it for good or evil as they please. There are plenty of examples of
both.

Financial Times is located in what is likely the most extreme example of a
surveillance country in existence today. There are cameras everywhere, and the
government collect detailed information about all citizens. Strict regulations
exist to ensure that this information can only be used by the government, and
there is an outrage only when these regulations are broken.

It is not surprising that these two views on the role of information in
society clash. Information is power, and the question if this power should be
centralized in the government, or spread out to the people. The risk of abuse
is far greater for the later, but the consequences of abuse is far greater for
the former.

Some may prefer a third way, an opaque society where public information won´t
be collected, even though the technical means for doing so exists. I doubt
that is feasible, it will probably result in another society where the
collected information is only available to the few.

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jhickner
I kept hoping this was satire.

~~~
spectre
You have to understand something to satire it. This guy obviously didn't
understand.

~~~
Tichy
What did he not understand?

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natrius
Copyright law, the DMCA's Safe Harbor Provision (and its European analogues),
whether people should have an expectation of privacy on public streets, and
what the solution to the tracking cookie problem should be. I'll assume the
first three misunderstandings are self-evident. The last one I'll explain.

Cookies are sent by your computer, which is under your control, to Google and
other advertising companies. The solution isn't regulation. The solution is
browsers that make it easy to control the information that you're providing.
Every existing major browser is produced by an internet advertising company or
is paid by an internet advertising company, so there's a bit of a conflict of
interest at the moment. If governments want to solve this problem, it would be
cheaper to create a browser extension that achieves their goals, or publicize
an existing one.

What expectation of privacy should one have on the internet in the first
place? If I patronize some establishment in the real world, there's no
guarantee that they won't tell anyone else that I went there. Safeway probably
shares my purchasing history with all sorts of companies. The assumption that
your web site visits are private isn't based on any analogue in the physical
world.

If the government thinks it's a good idea to inform people of the supposed
dangers of letting internet advertisers accumulate information amount them and
ways to prevent it, that's fine with me. Making it illegal or imposing onerous
regulations on tracking cookies is silly and unnecessary.

If this guy gets his way, every website is going to have some annoying
interstitial that asks you to opt in to their tracking cookies, and you'll get
them every time your cookies get cleared or expire. That would be extremely
annoying.

It would also likely be the end of free, advertising supported services on the
internet.

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Tichy
I have read the article again, but I must have missed the parts where he
recommends the actions you say he recommends (ie regulation, outlawing of
cookies). I only saw the bit about stopping Microsoft (personally I thought it
was wrong to call Microsoft a monopoly and attempt to smash it by law, but
obviously people have different opinions on that).

He seems to be right in pointing out the problem. Whether we have a right or
even a hope to privacy is another matter.

~~~
natrius
_"Clearly, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft should opt you out [of tracking
cookies] by default."_

 _"They must be regulated and restrained by law so we can sleep at ease even
though we know we cannot trust them."_

Tracking cookies don't strike me as much of a problem. All the author says is
that Google tracks us on the internet. So what?

 _"Search engines like those of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft can provide the
companies that own and manage them with detailed information about many
aspects of our lives, including our intimate, personal lives."_

He doesn't elaborate on this point. What data about my personal life do
tracking cookies give those companies? Oh no, Google knows how much I futilely
try to disprove Rule 34.

Google does have my email and calendar, which could be a problem, but I'm more
afraid of the government subpoenaing or PATRIOT Act-ing my data than Google
misusing it, and the government can get it no matter who has it. In fact,
Google's sheer size increases the financial incentive they have to not misuse
my data. Their reputation is incredibly valuable.

~~~
Tichy
He does not elaborate on the regulations that should be in place in his
opinion. Your way of quoting him makes it sound as if he wants to outlaw
cookies, but I don't think that is what he is saying. I am not sure what kinds
of regulations could be useful, but I am also not sure that there are no
useful regulations at all.

As for privacy, and the data tracking cookies provide: it would depend on the
web sites you visit, wouldn't it? I think in the average case, it would
provide pretty much every bit of information about you imaginable (for example
illnesses in your family).

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fauigerzigerk
I am concerned about privacy issues with google and I'm trying to defend
against them as good as I can, including not using google for everything.

But I'm scared outright by the people who might regulate them. Governments are
pushing for much more far reaching and much more consequential invasion of
privacy than would ever be in google's interest.

Buiter makes it appear as if evil commercial interests were the worst that
could happen to us. Being spammed with dog food adverts is not nearly as bad
as being charged with crimes you didn't commit by incompetent morally confused
totalitarian law makers.

European governments are currently building a system of censorship and
questionable evidence collection, partly to enforce laws against the very
"crimes" that google allegedly commits. We're being subjected to grotesque
disproportionate surveillance techniques by our governments in the interest of
Mr. Buiter's own commercial interests as an author.

It's amazing how incredibly clueless even the most esteemed academics can be.

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johnnybgoode
_Google is to privacy and respect for intellectual property rights what the
Taliban are to women’s rights and civil liberties_

I suspect I'm more "anti-Google" than most people here, but when the article
starts out like that, even I have to just say "flamebait" and move on.

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iamcalledrob
I hope this guy never gets into politics...

/reads his bio on the right..

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ghost11
How amusing. A Briton thinks that a corporation is a danger to privacy,
instead of his own government.

