Google's Invasion Of Privacy Is Dead On The Internet

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” The quote shows modern society well. Living in 21th century is like living in a glass box. We are living in society that needs only a few clicks to get information of others.

Large corporations have a lot to gain by deanonymizing the internet. Consumer’s lives are becoming increasingly dependent on internet-connected cell phones, laptops, cars, refrigerators, heart monitors and other household appliances. After consumers sign the terms of service, corporations, such as Facebook and Google, can use these devices to collect information about their users. That information could include Google search history, location history, or in some cases heart rate (Maras). Corporations then use this information to develop and advertise products to these consumers. In response to this disregard for privacy, consumers have turned to anonymizing services such as The Onion Router and Virtual Private Networks to protect their identities (Winkler). But Corporations, which are largely invested in the ability to gather statistics on their users, are proposing that all forms of anonymity should be eliminated.

Google challenged the appeal made by Authors guild that the copying is "fair use" because it is very useful for public and there is no harm to made it available for public. But this step of google create a great negative economic impact because readers stop buying books and start searching it

The progress in relation to Google books has of late sparked a cause for closer look in relation to the issue. All these problems have emanated from the argument by Google in the year 2005, that the company would start a scanning process on books and digitalize them in order to create a web based library for the world. By the year 2011, Google had gone ahead and rolled out this plan working with various partners in the scanning certain books and availing them online. Google books have faced controversy because of various issues such as copyright infringement. As pertains to copyright infringement, there has been raging debate that Google was violating the provision by scanning contents of books whose authors had not died in the past 70 years (Baksik 405).

In 2007, Google’s controversy regarding Street View raised privacy and security concerns. Street View allows for high-resolution photos enabling you to explore 360-degree panoramic, street-level imagery of places once you type in the correct address. This could range from vehicle license plates, properties, people doing mundane activities, as well as people in compromising or out-of-context situations. And since Google’s

The words, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” were said by Edward Snowden who is a computer professional in America. Similarly, the essays “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” “Web Users Get as Much as They Give,” and “Facebook Is Using You” from Nicholas Carr, Jim Harper, and Lori Andrews respectively points out that the internet privacy is good and bad. However, the articles by Carr and Andrews are based on the negative side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is not good. On the other hand, Harper’s article is based on the positive side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is good and scary, but people need to be careful of their own information and browsing histories, and websites. Jim Harper’s essay is more relevant and reasonable than the Nicholas Carr and Lori Andrews’s essays. However, Harper seems more persuasive to readers because he believes that the internet is good if people use it in a right way, whereas Carr and Andrews believe that the internet is not good at all.

Lori Andrews, non-fiction, “Facebook Is Using You” (2012); laments that the United States is one of the few nations to lack data privacy laws and thus Google searches and Facebook activity can be used as data for purchase by companies and even the government. Andrew blends a variety of sources ranging from articles, to specific examples, hypothetical instances, and the details of particular pieces of legislation. Andrews’ purpose is to warn against the moral dilemma data mining presents in order to call the public to speak out and seek change in policy. Andrews develops a disgruntled and foreboding tone to clearly highlight how the lack of data privacy laws can affect the American public’s personal lives unless they choose to speak out against

How strong are you addicted to Google? Google is not at fault for people constantly being on the internet. People use technology so often and it’s been blamed onto one site like Google. In reality, how often is that user on the internet. Also, many other sites are just as used as Google is. Does that make those websites also unjust? The word unjust is defined as “lacking in justice or fairness,” which, in reference to the proposed question suggests that Google is being held to a legal or moral standard. In reality Google simply provides a means to gather and research information and does not set the rules. It is at the discretion of the users how the acquired information will be interpreted and used.

The article “Should Google's New Privacy Policy Concern You” discusses Google’s revised privacy policy. It explains how Google wants to combine all the information that any user has provided to any service with all the information from all other services. Regarding Google’s mission, vision, and values

Free speech is a fundamental American right. Free speech keeps us informed and connected, and it lets us hold our government accountable. An uncensored Internet is a critical indicator of a nation’s commitment to free speech and a tool to keep that freedom alive. There are some things the government or a company have the right to do and not do which is not telling the public what to watch and what not to. But in this case, I would say Google made the right decision in initiating a “page-down” of the video but what I really don’t understand is why Google only decided to block the video in some countries and not in the rest of the world. A video of a minister seen burning the Koran would have caused a lot of religious conflict, and instead of

Ethics are “rules or standards that govern the conduct of members of a group” (Roland). In every work environment there are a predetermined set of ethical standards the company has put forth for its employees to abide by. But in the technologically fast paced world of today, the lines of what is ethical and unethical blurs easily. While some will argue that any information that is accessible should be able to be read by anyone looking for it, others will argue that just because the information exists on a computer somewhere does not mean it is open territory for all. So how do companies draw the line between what is right and wrong, between who sees what information, and what information

services. Official Google Privacy policy states: “When you use Google services, you trust us with your information.”. (Google) Google privacy policy is built on the opt-out requirement and they influence their customer to implicitly trust it with their personal data. Google claims in their mission statement that “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google Inc.) to create a perception of a trustworthy and ethical company who should be trusted to do the right thing for their customer.

According to the text, Google relies on tracking along with other activities to maintain profitability, it has large stake in the privacy issue (p.471). Google has been working on updating their privacy policy to better comply with what the users want when it comes to their private information. In 2012, Google revamped their privacy policy and combined all its information it gathered from its users from the different Google services. Google drafted a 13-page letter answering all government questions (p.469). Google states that all users have the option of turning off certain features that collect users information. The new policy also states that it would not impact the amount of data it gathers or deletes and that it remains highly committed to user privacy (p.469). If Google can continue to follow this new policy where it commit to its users privacy and not have it clash with its profitability then Google users will be happy. Majority of Google users just want to make sure that when they use the Google search engine, their private information is secured and not leaked to hackers. Google has the power to respect its privacy and maintain its profitability by keeping the two issues separate.

Google has had many controversial projects that concern people who are worried about maintaining their privacy. Google Glass, Google Maps, and Google Street View are some examples of such Projects. Google Street View, for instance, “is a feature … that allows users to explore the world through 360-degree street-level imagery” ("What is Street View? How can I see it?”, n.d.). This technology allows Google to display faces, license plates, publicly visible private properties, and

Google is a company that was conceptualized in a dorm room by two Stanford University college students in 1996 (Arnold, 2005, p. 1) and has morphed into one of the greatest technological powerhouses in operation today. What began as merely a means to analyze and categorize Web sites according to their relevance has developed into a vast library of widely utilized resources, including email servicing, calendaring, instant messaging and photo editing, just to reference a few. Recent statistics collected by SearchEngineWatch.com reflects that of the 10 billion searches performed within the United States during the month of February, 2008, an impressive 5.9 billion of them were executed by Google (Burns, 2008). Rated as Fortune Magazine’s