Comment by pierrefar
15 years ago
I'd like Eric Schmidt to publicly release his search history, both his work-related and private searches.
15 years ago
I'd like Eric Schmidt to publicly release his search history, both his work-related and private searches.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice?
Perhaps he is saying, "The fact of the matter is that we're required to retain and release lots of information. If you don't want that information being passed around, you probably shouldn't give it to us. Sorry, we do the best we can under the circumstances."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be [googling] it in the first place."
It could also, of course, be simple uncritical rationalization.
If staying in business and out of the cross-hairs of the DoJ's anti-trust division means you have to play ball with some data retention "requests," then you're probably going to rationalize a million tenuously logical reasons why that's the right thing to do.
To be fair, you don't have a lot of choice in deciding whether or not to comply with a National Security Letter. I think "because I'm not going to go to jail for our users" is a perfectly logical reason.
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But it's worse than that, tc. Why do they keep the information for so long? Because they are required? No. They monetize it. Sooooo, in the future there will come great pressure to increase the value of Google stock. Not today, perhaps, but some day.
When that day comes, insurance companies are going to say, "We'll make it worth your while if you tell us who is googling for 'breast cancer;' 'diabetes;' 'melanoma.'" At some point in the future the major shareholders (think Carl Icahn or some such character) will make it awfully hard to say, "no." Just a more direct way to monetize the data.
As I said elsewhere here, google should, if they don't want to be evil, allow us to opt for a poorer search experience and not keep our data.
Storing search queries genuinely helps improve Google's search results. It's not inherently evil.
And I don't buy your slippery slope argument. Sure, Google could sell your search patterns. And your ISP could sell your browsing habits. And ask.com's AskEraser feature could all be a lie and it too could be selling your queries...
Ultimately if you don't trust Google with your search queries, then you should take Schmidt's advice and not query anything embarrassing.
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Who's requiring them to retain anything? For 180 days?
And retaining for policing/security reasons doesn't mean you should use the data for other privacy-invading targeting.
Actually there's no law in the U.S. about data retention (E.U. has one) but companies keep the data for their own engineering and marketing purposes AND to stay in good graces of authorities. (The Patriot Act and ECPA, among other laws, specify what data has to be turned over with a lawful request, but they don't require any entity to actually have that info.)
Patriot Act compliance
see the Yahoo leak from cryptomeme http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/yahoo-spy.pdf
My wild speculation would be that (related to tc's above) it's a mutual "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" with the DOJ. I'd be surprised if there weren't regulations in place which required them to keep the data for that long.
It's not like this is a problem specific to Google. Credit cards, for instance, are very convenient but also easily traced if you are up to no good. Nobody thinks the credit card companies should protect your anonymity -- if you're buying something you shouldn't, don't use a credit card.
What if his statement was not intended as a moral imperative, but as practical advice?
Not that you could tell from the article's headline. Either The Register is being sensationalist, or just didn't see it in those terms.
That's pretty much all The Register does.
As more practical advice, if you're doing something you don't want others associating with your IP address, use an anonymizer you feel you can trust.
The Register being sensationalist? Impossible!
Exactly.
Finally, a reasoned response. I came in here just to say this; Can't believe what an uproar this is causing...
The uproar is caused because here's a man who knows more about me than my own mother and he is saying things my mother would have been ashamed of :-)
Telling me how to do what I want to do is practical. Telling me what to do or not to do is patronizing.
Even if you want to search for that - do so without logging into your google account.
If that is what he is saying, he should just say this. Wouldn't it be simpler?
Maybe he's blinking out morse code with his eyelids.
You mean searching for "illegal hot nude child porn photos for download in the usa, my address is 100 Foo street", is a poor idea?
Searching for 'chronic heart disease' might be a bad idea if your employer or health insurer sign up to a future Google employee watch (tm) service
I don't think he'd like that at all.
The article links to a story about Google blocking CNET reporters for a year after they used Google search to find details about Schmidt: http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/
Really, all this "privacy" nonsense is for the little people, not important folk like Eric Schmidt, anyway.
about Google blocking CNET reporters for a year
To be clear, this is a story about Google's press representatives not speaking to CNET reporters -- when I first read it, I thought you meant that Google blocked CNET's IP address. Still a very petty response.
Eric Schmidt has never had anything to hide, like cheating on his wife... Oh wait...
All of these guys are hypocrites; when will you guys realize this? Oh, and that gas-guzzling 767 with the private shower is being used to "create good in places like Africa" (or whatever they had said), right?
Did Eric Schmidt really do a Google search for "Did I cheat on my wife?"?
I bet he used Google to find hotels for having liasons in... Wait, Eric, why were you looking for a room in Las Vegas last week, you told me you were in New York?
When I use my credit card online I accept the fact that it may be exposed. That doesn't mean I should have to publicly release my credit card number though does it?
I think a lot of people are having a knee-jerk reaction thinking that this guy is giving moral advice. What I see here is just a statement of fact: if you don't want something to ever possibly be known about you, don't put in online.
Readers of this site should know better than the general public that there is always a risk of data getting into the wrong hands. Even if you trust the host. Even if you encrypted the data. etc.
At least he is telling you that all your searches are forwarded to the authorities under the patriot act. The cell phone companies haven't got round to warning you that your phone's location is given to the police 8million times.
Sprint did.
Not in advance!
He might not have any, The same way people who work at sausage factories don't eat sausage. His searches could be anonymous, encrypted and routed through foreign gateways.