Don’t be evil. That’s Google’s widely known corporate motto. Too bad it’s been rubbed away completely like button labels on a cheap remote control.
As the network neutrality debate has grown more intense, Google has stepped up its public relations machinery to pump out policy statement after policy statement advocating the benefits—no, the necessity—of transparency and free expression.
David Kravets, writing for Wired, cites a Google policy statement dated December 16, 2009 as saying, it was a “company that believes deeply in free expression” and that it was “determined to continue to do our part and make new, significant contributions to promote free expression in 2010.”
Because we must not have gotten it the first time, in a policy statement dated December 18, 2009, Google admits it hasn’t “always done a good job of talking about Google’s philosophical approach to privacy overall—or sharing our strong belief in harnessing data to create products and services that are useful for our users.” Google goes on to write that it’s spent the past several weeks talking with “policymakers, consumer advocates, think tanks, trade associations, and journalists” about Google’s approach to privacy. The company touts three major privacy initiatives for 2009: interest-based advertising, the data libration front, and Google Dashboard. “For 2010, we’re looking forward to taking even more steps to help users protect their privacy,” ends the policy statement.
Kravets reports asking Google “some simple questions about how much user data it turns over to the government.” Google’s spokespuppet Brian Richardson provided a non-answer answer:
“We don’t talk about types or numbers of requests to help protect all our users. Obviously, we follow the law like any other company. When we receive a subpoena or court order, we check to see if it meets both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying. And if it doesn’t we can object or ask that the request is narrowed. We have a track record of advocating on behalf of our users.”
Ah, yes, the old “we protect our users by not disclosing that information.” How’s that for transparency?
By way of comparison, note that none of the other players in the industry disclose the information either, although Verizon recently did so quite by accident. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from graduate student Christopher Sohohian, the telecommunications company said it receives “tens of thousands” requests from law enforcement agencies each year for customer records. Kravets reports “Sogohian’s intention was to combine the price sheets, with government data on how much it spent on getting phone and net records, to figure out how many requests the feds sent per year.”
Earlier this week, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the US Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, the National Security Agency, and the Director of National Intelligence released 162 pages of intelligence oversight reports. The reports outline intelligence activities that the agencies themselves “have reason to believe may be unlawful.”
Enough already.
Google certainly has the information and is certainly capable of disclosing it in the aggregate without breaching any “protection” of its users.
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